Chanelle Hayes - Baring My Heart (6 page)

‘It was really hard.’

‘Why? Didn’t you like her?’

‘No, it’s not that,’ I stammered. ‘She’s adorable. It’s just, well, I just don’t know how I’m meant to react.’

Seeing Nan cry upon meeting me had left me feeling so confused – should I have cried too?

A couple of days later, my mixed feelings made a little more sense to me. ‘I know what’s really bothering me,’ I told Christine. ‘Nan loved my mum to pieces but I can’t share that love because it’s for someone I’ve never known.’

‘Go on,’ Christine urged. ‘Keep talking.’

‘I just feel a bit cheated really. I’m gutted that I didn’t get to spend any time with my mum, and both my sisters and my Nan did. It’s not fair, is it?’

‘I think you’ve hit the nail on the head,’ Christine said, nodding. ‘But you mustn’t feel guilty about it. Don’t be too hard on yourself.’

Two weeks later, she accompanied me to Maria’s house so I could meet my sisters. Nan was there too and, when we arrived, Maria and Melissa ran to the door and both burst into tears as soon as they saw me.

‘Oh my God, she is just like our mum!’ Maria choked.

‘I told you, didn’t I?’ said Nan, reaching out for me.

‘It’s unbelievable,’ Melissa added, staring at me intensely.

I swallowed hard and said politely, ‘Hi. It’s very nice to meet you both.’

As Nan ushered us into the lounge, I realised we were not alone. There was a baby sleeping in one corner of the room and another little boy playing with his toys on the floor.

‘Meet your nephews, Chanelle,’ said Maria. ‘This is baby Euan and my other son, Luke. Say hello to your aunty, Luke.’

They were so cute but it was a lot to take in. Suddenly, I had two sisters and my own nephews! My brain felt like it was spinning.

‘Hi, Luke,’ I managed. ‘How old are you then?’

He was more engrossed in his toys than talking to his new
aunty, so we all sat down. It was lovely to hear all about their lives and I felt a surge of empathy for Maria and Melissa as they recounted the pain of having me taken away from them.

Melissa said she’d been in bits when I went into foster care. ‘I had to cope first with losing our mum and then you, all in a short space of time,’ she said.

God knows how shattering it must have been for them both and Maria told me, ‘Every time I passed a little girl in the street, I’d check if it was you.’

As for their memories of me as their new-born sister, Melissa said I was a very content baby. One of her most vivid memories of me was when our mum asked her to check on me and she said I was just lying in my cot gurgling, wriggling my hands and feet but not making any noise at all.

They were both so emotional at that meeting and I was unbelievably touched but I felt so guilty that I wasn’t in floods of tears too. You see long-lost relatives meeting up on TV on shows like
Surprise, Surprise
and it’s like, ‘Wow! I’ve dreamed of meeting you all my life! I’m so happy we’ve found each other!’ But in reality, it churns up a lot of painful memories and sentiments that are hard to handle.

Later, when I got home, Mum and Dad asked me how it went. I was still trying to process the whole encounter and said, ‘Yeah, it was nice – but I feel bad that I wasn’t more upset too.’

‘That’s understandable, Chanelle,’ Mum said. ‘You were only a tiny baby when you were split up and you didn’t know any different. So of course, coming together again was going to affect them more. They’ll understand that though.’

Mum and Dad were both so generous in how they dealt with it all. It can’t have been easy for them to see me, who they’d raised as their own, swan off to meet these new relatives. I’d always felt so loyal to Mum, Dad and David, so the fact that I
now had another family racked me with guilt. But, as I wrestled with these feelings, I had no idea that fate would deal us yet another cruel twist in the coming weeks.

W
ith recent events constantly running through my mind like it was stuck on a loop, I made the bad move of turning back to Scott. He was now renting a terraced house in Wakefield and begged me to move in with him.

‘This is a new start for us, babe,’ he urged. ‘You’ve dealt with all your family stuff and I’ve cleaned myself up and got this place. Come on, let’s try living together properly. Just you and me. What do you say?’

With my head a bit of a mess, I agreed. And my parents were obviously deeply unhappy about it.

‘You will regret it, trust me,’ Dad warned. ‘He’s bad news.’

Of course, I didn’t listen though and off I went. In fairness, Scott had got himself off the drugs but, within a few days, he became as controlling as ever. He’d say things like, ‘Why’ve you got your hair like that? It looks really trampy.’

He was critical of my clothes too. ‘Why are you wearing those tight jeans? You look like a tart.’

Of course, I should have told him where to go but, because I’d
had such a hard time at home in the past year, I craved my independence and being with him gave me that. I was so desperate to keep him happy, even if that meant taking his constant abuse. He tried to stop me from going to school at all and then he didn’t even want me to leave the house. A simple trip to the shops would result in the Spanish Inquisition.

‘Where are you going? Who are you going with? What time will you be back?’ he’d ask.

Worst of all, he told me that I was fat and ugly. ‘You need to work out more,’ he said, looking me up and down as I dressed up for a night out.

I suppose it was a tactic to make me wear clothes that covered up more of my body. Were we living in the Dark Ages or something? I really can’t explain why I didn’t walk out straight away but, as my self-esteem was shot to pieces, his approval meant everything. So on the rare days he was kind to me, or said, ‘You look gorgeous today,’ I felt thrilled. I just wanted him to love me, plain and simple.

The turning point came just before my 16th birthday. I’d planned a small party with some friends and had bought a slinky new black halter-neck dress, which I couldn’t wait to wear. About a week before the big day, I was trying it on in front of the mirror and deciding what shoes to wear with it when Scott came home in a really odd mood. Despite his promises that he’d cleaned up his act, I instantly recognised that he was drugged up again, God only knows what on. And though I may have taken some crap from him over the months, whenever I sensed he’d been messing with drugs, I put my foot down, big time.

‘You can’t just go out taking that shit, Scott. It’s not fair on me,’ I snapped, as he stood staring at me, spaced out.

‘If you want me to live with you, you can’t do this to me, I’ve
told you before. Don’t you think knowing my mum was a drug addict is enough for me to deal with?’

But Scott seemed not to care about my feelings at all and it suddenly became as clear as day that he was never going to change for me.

With a sly smile on his face, he lurched towards me and said with a sneer, ‘It’s none of your business what I’ve been doing. But here’s something you need to know. You are not wearing that dress for your party. You look like a complete slut.’

‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I replied, ‘but I am wearing it. You can’t tell me what to do.’

And then, from out of nowhere, he exploded in a fit of rage. ‘Don’t you dare back-chat me, you little bitch!’

Feeling scared, I tried to run out of the bedroom but he blocked my path and pushed me backwards. Now I erupted too.

‘Don’t fucking push me!’ I shouted at the top of my lungs.

‘And don’t you swear at me!’ he roared.

I was screaming at him to let me go and tried to shove him back but then, in one swift motion, he pushed me to the floor really hard.

‘You bastard!’ I shrieked, as a flash of pain jolt through my body. I picked myself up and tried to run past him again but he grabbed my hair and started pulling me down the stairs. I clung on to the banister as tightly as I could but he was too strong. As I slipped down the steps one by one, I felt the carpet stinging my skin and, the more I fought him, the more it hurt.

‘Let me go!’ I kept yelling and then, managing to wriggle free, I ran into the kitchen, desperate to get away from him. He followed me, calling me all sorts of awful names.

‘Shut up! Shut up! Let me go! I’m not listening to this bullshit any more!’

I put my hands over my ears and tried to push him away
but he came right at me and, for a split second, I thought he was about to reach for a knife in the wooden block on the work surface.

‘You’re not fucking going anywhere!’ he said slowly. All of a sudden, I felt my life was actually in danger. But, thank God, the neighbours had heard all the commotion and at that moment banged on the front door.

‘What’s going on in there?’ they shouted through the letterbox. ‘We’ve called the police.’

Scott froze in his tracks, looked me straight in the eyes and, as he realised what he’d done, his anger seemed to dissipate in an instant. He walked silently away from me and into the lounge. I opened the front door and, after convincing our neighbours I was fine, ran up to the bathroom to bathe my face. Looking in the mirror, I couldn’t believe the state of what was reflected back at me. I was so young – what the hell was I doing being shoved around and listening to that kind of abuse? I should have been out having a laugh with my mates, not having a full-on domestic like some battered wife.

The police arrived a few minutes later and, as you’d expect, Scott was adamant he’d done nothing wrong.

‘I would never hurt her,’ he told them. ‘She attacked me and I was acting in self-defence.’

I got my things together and as I left, an overwhelming sadness swept over me. I felt sorry for him for a split second but it was fleeting – I knew it was over.

Not wanting to be on my own that night, I went back to my mum and dad’s – thank goodness they always kept my bedroom for me. Fortunately, they were asleep when I got home and I was so dazed I didn’t want to wake them to tell them what had gone on.

The next day, after a fitful sleep, I had several bruises from our
tussle and my eyes were all swollen from crying. Walking into the kitchen sheepishly, I announced myself tearfully to Mum and Dad. ‘Hello. I’m back.’

‘Good God! What has happened to you?’ Mum said. ‘You look awful.’

Dad jumped up from his seat. ‘What the hell’s been going on?’

‘It’s OK, Dad. Scott and I had a fight last night. But I’m fine.’

I told them the full story and Dad just looked and sounded so sad.

‘Surely now you can see that he’s no good for you, Chanelle? What’s it going to take for you to see sense?’

‘Don’t worry. I think I’ve finally seen the light,’ I said.

That morning, I dragged myself to school, feeling incredibly sorry for myself. Although I’d caked make-up on, I still looked rough and everyone kept asking me what had happened to me. Of course, I was too proud to admit what had really gone on. But unbelievably, Scott came to pick me up from school that day as if nothing had happened.

‘Hi babe,’ he said casually, as he approached me at the gates.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I seethed, barging past him. ‘I don’t want to see you ever again. Get lost!’

But he’d obviously planned his speech carefully. ‘Chanelle, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me, I’ll never do it again, I swear on my life. Please, just give me one more chance.’

‘Scott, how could you be like that to me?’ I shook my head. ‘I can’t get back with you. It’s over.’

‘I only got angry because I love you so much,’ he said. ‘But I’m going to change for you this time. It will never happen again. I swear. Please, don’t throw away what we’ve got. We’re good, you and me. And you know we are.’

A flicker of hesitation must have crossed my face because he smiled at me.

‘Come on. What can I do to make it up you? Let me take you shopping and buy you a lovely birthday present.’

I still don’t know why he had such a hold over me but he always knew exactly how to butter me up. Classic bullying tactics, I guess.

‘I can’t make any decision right now,’ I said and sighed. ‘I need to think about this. You’ve hurt me badly so many times.’

I knew in my heart that getting back with him would be the wrong thing to do but he had the ability to make me question every single thought process and decision I ever made. ‘Was it all my fault?’ I wondered. ‘Perhaps my clothes
are
too tarty? If I hadn’t bought that bloody dress, maybe it would never have happened.’

I was in such a quandary and I clearly couldn’t ask my parents for guidance. I knew their take on it and that they’d be livid if they knew I was questioning things again.

Scott continued to call me constantly. And though I wouldn’t talk to him, I decided to phone his mum Lynne for advice. What she said finally gave me the push I needed.

‘I care about you as if you were my own daughter, Chanelle. You need to think very carefully about your future and, though it pains me to say this, I don’t think it should be with Scott.’

I was shocked. ‘Do you really think that badly of him?’

‘Well, of course I love him, he’s my son and I’ll always look out for him. But I can’t sit back and watch you throw away your life. I’ve seen you hurt so many times now and enough is enough.’

‘You don’t think he will change then?’

‘He needs to grow up and, until he does that, you will be better off without him. Get yourself out of it. That’s my best advice.’

Lynne’s words deeply affected me and helped me realise that it was definitely over – for good. I had to walk away, for the sake of my own sanity.

T
o Mum and Dad’s credit, they spared me the whole ‘We told you so’ act and seemed happy enough not to discuss my poor judgement over Scott.

‘I don’t want to talk about him ever again,’ I said. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s finished.’

‘Fair enough,’ Mum said. ‘But, please, will you just choose your next boyfriend more carefully, for all our sakes?’

‘Don’t worry, Mum. I will never let any guy treat me so badly again. This is the new, improved, non-doormat Chanelle,’ I joked.

Well, it seemed so good in theory.

Though still hurting about the whole sorry situation, I focused all my energy on the party for my 16th and it was a really great night. In a good ‘up yours’ to Scott, I proudly wore the new black dress to a brilliantly cheesy club in Wakefield called Grand Central.

‘You look sensational,’ my friends told me. ‘Screw that loser, huh?’

I felt happy for the first time in ages and knew they were right. I was worth far more than the way he’d made me feel.

Getting merry on cocktails and champagne, I felt a heavy load lift off my shoulders. I know, at 16, I wasn’t really old enough to be boozing but it was all harmless enough – and way better than going out and getting wasted on ecstasy or horrible stuff like that. Anyway, as we all danced and had a good laugh, a guy called Nick, who I’d met at a mate’s party a while before, sidled up to me.

‘Happy birthday, gorgeous,’ he said, holding his drink up to mine.

‘Thanks,’ I replied as we clinked glasses.

After a slightly awkward drunken pause, he garbled, ‘So can I take you for a drink sometime?’

Fuelled by the booze, I giggled and gave him a hug. ‘Yeah, why not?’ I said. ‘You know I’ve just come out of a relationship, so I’m not looking for anything serious but, if you’re cool with that, let’s have some fun.’

‘Sure,’ he said and grinned.

Freed from the shackles of Scott, I saw that Nick was quite cute, with highlighted hair and dark eyes. We’d been messaging each other occasionally on MySpace after meeting a few months back and he’d seemed nice and really funny.

But after we’d arranged to meet a few days later, I thought twice about it and almost called it off.

Mum told me to relax. ‘You’re young, you’re single and you’re free, Chanelle. It’s only a drink, isn’t it?’

Frankly, I think she was just hoping it would deter me from picking up the phone to Scott again but she was right, of course. He seemed decent enough and I could do whatever I damn well liked now.

So we met for a drink and, despite being nervous as hell, like I always am on first dates, we had a lovely evening. We just chatted for hours and began texting each other loads after that. We quickly became an item but I didn’t want anything heavy or
complicated, just to have a good laugh. And that’s exactly what Nick gave me. Even when I was feeling low, he could make me cry with laughter and he never judged me or my past. It was nice to have an easy relationship without 50 tons of baggage attached to it.

I’ve got nothing bad to say about Nick at all – especially as he was there for me throughout the next traumatic experience that life decided to throw my way.

In the month or so since I’d met them, I’d been in regular touch with my new family: we’d had a barbecue at Nan’s place and I’d gone to Alton Towers with Maria and Melissa. Though she seemed increasingly frail each time I saw her, it clearly made Nan so happy to see her three granddaughters bonding after all this time.

But, while I did grow close to my sisters, my feelings of guilt were still lurking, not least because I’d had a fairly privileged life after being adopted. When our mum died, Maria went to live on a rough estate in Sheffield with her dad and Melissa grew up on another tough estate in Huddersfield with her dad. On the other hand, I had a ‘two-point-four-children’ kind of upbringing in an affluent bit of Wakefield, with a nice house and a good education. I just got lucky, I guess.

Though I couldn’t share in their memories, I did like hearing all their lovely stories about our mum because she was a real homebody before it all went so wrong. She had fallen into the destructive drug circle precisely because she wanted to put food on the table and get us a new house and her biggest wish was for the four of us to all live together.

‘The biggest tragedy is that she died while trying to get her life back on track,’ Melissa said.

I also learned that reading was our mum’s big passion and that she used to throw big bonfire and Halloween parties at home.
And at Easter, she would fill the living room with dozens and dozens of chocolate eggs, which my sisters adored. They both said nobody ever had a bad word to say about her. Of course, it was reassuring to hear these things but it still makes me sad I wasn’t a part of it. I found it hard to talk about her death too. While they would cry and cry about it, it was a bit remote to me, like an episode of
CSI
.

Meanwhile, my Nan – who Melissa and Maria always called ‘Nanan’ – seemed to dwell on the past a little less, perhaps because her memory wasn’t as sharp by this point. I had very quickly grown extremely fond of her so, when Maria called me with some terrible news one day, I was distraught.

‘Nanan’s had a stroke, Chanelle,’ she said. ‘She’s in a bad way. Apparently she can’t even talk.’

This was bad. She’d already had one stroke previously, so I dropped everything and went straight to Maria’s place.

‘Will she pull through?’ I asked them on the way to the hospital.

‘No idea,’ Melissa replied grimly. ‘She’s pretty old now, you know.’

She wasn’t wrong. Nan was in her mid-eighties but looked even older and incredibly weak in her hospital bed.

Because the latest stroke had left her unable to talk, she had to write messages to us on a piece of paper. Her writing was like a child’s and took a huge amount of effort, the poor thing. At one point, she scrawled, ‘I’m going home on Saturday.’

‘Bless her,’ I thought. ‘She really thinks she’s well enough to leave here.’

Then, that very Saturday, a horribly spooky thing happened. It was early in the morning and I got a call from my sisters. They were both crying hysterically down the phone.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, fearing the worst. ‘Is it Nan?’

‘She’s dead,’ sobbed Maria.

I almost dropped the phone. It was so horrible. She had seemed so determined to go home when we visited her but it was almost as if she had predicted her own death instead.

‘What do we do now?’ I said.

‘We have to sort the funeral,’ Maria replied, her voice shaking. ‘We’ll keep you posted on all the details.’

And with that, the conversation was over. There was nothing else to say. It seemed so cruel that I’d known her only a few weeks. I was not ready to have her snatched away from me so soon.

A little bit later, my tears arrived. I was despondent that I hadn’t carved out more opportunities to see her but I didn’t drive then and Sheffield was two train rides away. Plus I was working hard at college and part time every weekend. Somehow, those excuses didn’t make me feel any better though.

The day of Nan’s funeral came and, thankfully, Nick came with me. But I couldn’t stop crying from the moment we arrived at the church – especially when one of the mourners came up to me and said, ‘You know, Annie was hanging on until she’d met you. Now she’d finally done that, she felt it was her time to go.’ That just set me off big time. The thought of her clinging to life for as long as possible until she met me was too upsetting to bear.

After the ceremony, there was a wake and my sisters and I ended up drinking far too much.

As I sat sobbing in the pub, Melissa said, ‘Think about how I feel – Nanan was like a mum to me.’ Maybe I was being
oversensitive
because I’d had too much wine but it felt like she was telling me I couldn’t grieve because I hadn’t known her long enough.

‘Not everything is about you, Melissa!’ I snapped and we ended up having a huge row, right there in front of everyone. We
were making such a scene that Maria ordered us back to her house, where the argument continued at full throttle.

‘There are three of us here, you know,’ I told Melissa. ‘Yeah, it’s bad for you but I didn’t even have the chance to know her. Think how that makes me feel!’

‘Shut up! You don’t understand at all,’ she shouted. ‘How can you know? You’ll never realise what we’ve lost.’

I’m appalled to confess to this but we then started slapping each other. It was horrific. I’ve never been in a physical fight in my life but that’s how upset we both were.

‘I wish I’d never met you!’ I yelled at her, which, of course, wasn’t true at all but it was the most hurtful thing I could think of to say.

‘Why don’t you just clear off back to your cosy little life then?’

Fortunately, someone intervened and pulled us apart and Nick then took me home.

‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ he said, stroking my hair. ‘After everything you’ve been through, why turn on each other like this?’

Looking back on it, while Nan had brought me and my sisters together initially, it was as if the glue couldn’t hold us together after she died. I didn’t speak to either of them for months after the funeral, which is so sad when we could probably have helped each other with our loss.

Eventually, we did reconcile and move on and, nowadays, I love them both dearly. I feel so grateful that they came in to my life when they did – but I will always be filled with profound regret that the three of us didn’t have longer with Nan.

As I mentioned, Nick was a rock for me during that time but I knew I had to pull myself together because my GCSEs were looming that spring. It wasn’t the best time to be facing big exams that would shape my future career but I threw myself into
my revision for the next few months and did better than I ever could have hoped, getting all As and Bs, and even four A* grades. I was so happy that all that hard work paid off.

As a reward to myself, and probably in direct response to the heartache of the past year, I went a little crazy that summer. Nick, our friends and I would hit the bars and clubs in Wakefield most evenings and I lost count of the number of messy nights we had. I remember wearing some truly shocking outfits too, such as string vests and a coloured bra underneath, with tight
pedal-pusher
combats and pointy heels. I even wore sweatbands and ankle warmers – nice!

Things with Nick were going well too. Although my parents liked him, he was never allowed to stay at ours, so I spent most of my time at his house, and his parents, Vicky and Tony, became like family to me. On a Friday night, they would have friends round for dinner and drinks and there was always laughter in the house. It was just a welcoming, relaxing place to hang out.

My great exam results meant that I won a place at Greenhead College in Huddersfield that autumn, which was one of the best in the country. It’s so prestigious that you have to have formal interviews to get in, so I was thrilled and very excited when they accepted me.

And, of course, Mum and Dad were so proud they could hardly get their heads through the front door for a couple of weeks after they found out! I opted to take A Levels in English, Spanish and Music and it started off brilliantly. I had a feeling this was going to be a really great time in my life.

But sadly, despite loving my subjects individually, my enjoyment of college didn’t last long, thanks to my horrible Spanish teacher. For some reason, she took an instant dislike to me and was always really mean about the fact I chose to dress like Victoria Beckham.

It was 2003 and, though the Spice Girls had gone their separate ways three years earlier, my obsession with Posh was still going strong. By this point, she was doing her solo music stuff and I loved her hip-hop sound and cool new image. She did a song called ‘Let Your Head Go’, which turned out to be her last solo single. The video was amazing – she was sitting on a throne and wearing a tiara, then basically going mental, flinging clothes around and chucking vases of flowers with all this wild hair. She even did a mock flash of her boobs to the paparazzi before being led away by men in white coats. I loved the way Victoria could take the mickey out of herself and, though she obviously wasn’t the greatest singer to have ever graced the earth, she always looked gorgeous.

As a hobby, Posh was a costly one: I spent a small fortune trying to keep up with her ever-changing wardrobe. Just as well then that I had not one but two part-time jobs during college – one at River Island and one at Cedar Court, the hotel where I still did waitressing. It was hard work but it had to be done if I wanted to wear Victoria’s Rock & Republic jeans! In fact, hers was the only denim brand I’d wear and one of the worst lies I ever told Mum was that I needed to borrow £400 for one of my closest friends Rachel, who I’d met working at River Island. I told Mum I had to help her pay for a lip operation, when, in fact, it was to buy myself new jeans!

‘Rachel really needs the surgery, Mum,’ I fibbed. ‘She’s really miserable and depressed, so I’ve got to give her the cash.’

Mum, of course, being the kindly soul she is, handed the money over and off I went to get my VBs! I confessed all eventually and paid her back every penny but how awful was that?

Victoria also once had an amazing fake-fur bag, which had a diamante fastening on the side, and I was thrilled when I found a great high-street copy of it – for hundreds of pounds less than
her designer version, obviously. But the Monday after I bought it and proudly swanned into college with it for the first time, my Spanish teacher took one look at it and said, ‘You are not bringing that bag inside this classroom.’

‘Why not?’ I asked, innocently. ‘It’s like Victoria Beckham’s – it’s stunning.’

‘It’s revolting,’ she replied, totally deadpan. ‘Fur is disgusting, whether it’s fake or not.’

‘But I’m not just going to leave my bag outside class, am I?’ I said, getting annoyed.

‘OK, fine. Stay outside then, with your bag,’ she said, smirking.

So the nasty woman then made me carry my desk out of the classroom and work in the corridor for the rest of the lesson. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? And as if that wasn’t humiliating enough, she gave me a dressing-down in front of the whole class, saying, ‘You’re clearly very insecure if you think you need to look like someone else. Maybe you should stop being so pretentious.’ I didn’t actually understand what she meant by the word ‘pretentious’ but it was still like a slap in the face. I looked it up in the dictionary later and couldn’t believe she had been so rude. I was doing nothing wrong and it was no different to other girls copying any trend off the catwalk. I mean, the whole thing was crazy; the bag wasn’t even real! I don’t agree with killing animals either but this was a fake from a high-street shop that all girls my age went to.