I Won't Forgive What You Did (24 page)

Now stronger, I went to tell my neighbour, Sue, about what had happened, only to find her breathless and coughing. Even so, she was pleased to see me and was very sympathetic, offering help with child-minding the children once again so I could work for a few more hours. She was such a godsend. She had become like a mother to me really and with her help I was able to take on more cleaning work; I needed to work full-time to make ends meet, as I had had nothing from Joe, and I couldn’t bear the thought of claiming benefits.

I was also persuaded to start divorce proceedings, by my friend Maria, who now worked for a solicitor. That way, she explained, he’d have to pay me maintenance. By law.

It was while I was doing this that I was given the news that my paternal grandfather – Nan’s husband – had died. For all her vitriol, my nan had always adored Grandad, and in spite of all the bad things she’d done to me all these years I went around to see how she was.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by her reception. She told me it was my fault that Grandad had died. My fault, for ‘making Joe go’. Grandad had liked Joe, had got on well with him, and if I hadn’t lost Joe then he wouldn’t have had his stroke, and would still be alive. She was really angry. ‘This has all happened because of what
you
did,’ she told me. ‘You’re responsible.’

She pointedly ignored me for the whole of Grandad’s funeral, and I couldn’t get what she’d said to me out of my head. Though any rational person would have taken it for the cruelty it was, I could only wonder if perhaps she was right.

* * *

It was still on my mind – very much so – as winter became spring, and I was glad of having a friend such as Sue, who could at least keep me from cracking up. But when I dropped Jennifer at her house a few weeks later, while I went to work, I soon realized I wasn’t the only one with problems – she was talking strangely, not making any sense. Concerned, I stayed with her, and telephoned her son, Dick, who was an assistant manager in a supermarket in town, and who I’d got to know well over recent months.

He came straight away, but seemed irritable when I suggested she needed a doctor. ‘No she doesn’t,’ he argued. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s fine.’ He then turned to her. ‘You don’t need a doctor, do you, Mum?’

Sue shook her head. ‘Oh, no,’ she agreed.

‘That’s not true,’ I said quietly, not wishing to antagonize him further, but becoming worried. It clearly wasn’t just my family who insisted on being in denial about things they didn’t want to think about.

‘Mum says she doesn’t,’ he said, making it clear he wasn’t about to argue the point. But I knew she did. I’d only had to spend a little time around her to realize that much of what she said made no sense. She had told me, for instance, that his sister, who had only very recently had her third baby, had had lots and lots of babies; that they had just kept on coming out, one after another. This was not only concerning because it sounded so strange, but also because her two young granddaughters were currently in Sue’s care.

But there was nothing I could do, as Dick was adamant. I took Jennifer home and called work to explain and hoped that eventually he’d act. And indeed, later that day, Dick called round to let me know that Sue had been taken into hospital. Her confusion was because her brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen, due to the chest complaint she had.

I went to bed that night relieved. She’d clearly been more ill than anyone had realized, and now she’d be treated. But it didn’t happen, because the next morning Dick called again, to tell me she’d died.

I was devastated. Sue had only been in her early sixties, and had been so incredibly kind to me over the past four years. What was wrong with the world that such a wonderful person should be taken so young?

But as her death sank in, darker thoughts did too. More to the point, what was wrong with
me
? What had I done to cause all these horrible things to happen? First Joe had left, then Grandad had died and, most tragically, Sue had now gone too.

I couldn’t go on living here. Without Joe and Sue I had nothing to stay for. I called the council and asked for a transfer. I didn’t care where; I’d take any swap they offered, anywhere. I just needed to run and never stop. I needed to get away from my so-called ‘home’ and ‘family’. Get away from everything, everybody, and never come back.

Joe leaving had broken me. He had shattered me into so many pieces I didn’t think I could ever put them back together.

For a brief time I’d been able to put my past behind me and to believe in some sort of future. And though putting my trust in Joe had been a mistake, it was also one I was predestined to make. Marrying Joe meant escape from the upbringing that had damaged me; and although I had been naive in not seeing him for the irresponsible person he really was, he still remained the only significant person in my life who’d treated me as if I mattered. Or
appeared
to have treated me as if I mattered – I would find out that in this, as in so many of my interactions with people, I had been woefully misguided. His leaving, therefore, wasn’t just about the loss of
him
, it was also about the loss of the person I’d believed I could become
with
him, and now probably never would. How could I ever trust anyone again?

It was fortunate, looking back, that I couldn’t yet see the future that stretched before me. All I could see – and manage – were the day-by-day increments of living; of trying to pick up what pieces I could and fashioning some sort of life for me and the children.

In the short term, I found this difficult. The house swap had come through and, with painful irony, I was offered to switch with a family who lived close to both my parents and Nan. Though being physically close again, particularly to my father, made me anxious, I didn’t feel as ambivalent as I might have. I still felt terribly responsible for my mother. I still couldn’t walk into her house without feeling compelled to start scrubbing and cleaning. It was exhausting, but at least being close to family I might get support; at least it might help me feel safer. It would also, I hoped, make the children feel safer. I was still extremely anxious about hurting them – the feeling simply wouldn’t go away.

On the night before the move, feeling overwhelmingly sad, I decided the best way to get rid of the alcohol left over from the previous Christmas would be to drink it all – every drop. I became drunk extremely quickly, as I hardly ever drank, and started crying and crying, completely unable to stop. Then I began vomiting, and couldn’t stop that either, so the last night in the house that was our travesty of a home saw me hanging over the toilet, with my children flushing the chain every time I was sick. The worry on their faces broke my heart. I knew I was the worst mother in the whole world and deserved every single thing that had happened to me, including all the things that might still happen, like them being taken away, for their own protection.

I really believed this might happen. I seemed to be in a permanent state of anxiety which I couldn’t put a lid on. I began insisting that the children go to bed at six o’clock every night. Though Jennifer didn’t make a fuss, Alfie, now six, always wanted to stay up, but I wouldn’t let him. If they were in bed, I reasoned, then they were both safe from my screaming and shouting. I was just twenty-three, and I couldn’t cope. I had little support, hardly any money, no resources to fall back on, and was completely overwhelmed by the huge responsibility of having sole care of my two little children. I barely felt able to keep myself together, let alone them. At least, if they were asleep, they were safe from me.

I also became obsessed with Alfie going missing. He naturally wanted to go out onto the grass outside the house, and make friends with the other children. I couldn’t bear this, because I was afraid he might go missing. He might completely disappear – like my brother Adam did – and it would be my fault, and I’d have to speak to the neighbours, and they’d all know about Joe and think I was a bad mother, and then social services would take my children away, and all my worst nightmares would come true.

Consequently, Alfie spent long periods just sitting indoors watching everyone else playing through the window. I wondered if he was also looking out for his daddy, so that if he did come back he would see him coming.

Finally, under pressure from a neighbour, and also because I couldn’t bear Alfie’s sadness, I relented, and let him out to play. Typically, he disappeared within minutes. He’d apparently gone with a group of children to play in the field where the corn driers were. The corn driers were enormous, tall, metal containers with chutes for the corn to come out after it had been spun and dried.

I was beside myself, imagining all the horrible ways he could die in one. What if he fell in and choked to death? What if he couldn’t get out? What if the machine cut him up into little pieces? Yet I couldn’t go down there. I couldn’t face what I might find. I also couldn’t bear the thought of what I might
not
find. I was literally frozen with fear.

So when, a short while later, I saw Alfie coming up the road, laughing and chatting, I was in such a state I couldn’t stop myself. I wrenched open the door, grabbed him, hauled him roughly inside, then began shouting and hitting him repeatedly on the bottom with the little hand brush that belonged with the dustpan, which I’d snatched up in rage from the floor.

His expression changed in an instant from innocent happiness to fear and bewilderment. He must have thought I’d lost the plot. It took me instantly back to my mother’s kitchen when I was small, and would watch, horrified, as she slapped my sister. I stopped hitting him abruptly, and threw the brush across the hall, as if, with it still in my hand, I might start hitting him again and never stop.

My despair at Joe then was of such great intensity that had he been there I suspect I might have killed him.

I felt so out of control that I frightened myself. I couldn’t be trusted, I realized, after that. I was a bad mother and Alfie knew it, and had become wary around me, and I didn’t know what to do to mend things. So I did the thing I was best at, the thing I had been taught to do from my earliest childhood. The thing I needed to do to survive.

I did nothing. I just kept on pretending.

* * *

Just like I had been pretending about Joe. Not consciously, because I’d believed everything he told me, but on some level I had been in denial since the start, or so everyone started to tell me.

It was Nan who started it. I’d been visiting my mother and was on my way back from shopping for her with Alfie. We were walking along the road, and she fell into step, having just visited an old lady she sometimes looked after, and whose house Alfie and I had just passed.

‘Hello,’ she said to Alfie. ‘Where have you been, then?’

Alfie answered, and she fished a sweet out for him. She passed it to him and then started muttering as she often did; under her breath but still designed to be heard. ‘Poor little devil,’ she said, looking down at him. ‘You really should have made your marriage work. Tried a bit harder. Marriage is for life, you know. Not something you can just discard when you feel like it.’ She didn’t seem to want an answer, and I didn’t have one anyway. ‘Your mum and dad,’ she went on. ‘They’ve quite enough to do, without having to worry about
you.
’ Since what she said still didn’t require an answer, I didn’t give her one.

I felt overcome by hopelessness as always. And injustice, though at the time I didn’t recognize it. I couldn’t fathom why no one ever really seemed to want to know how I felt. All everyone seemed to want was to remind me how
they
felt. How they knew Joe leaving was my fault, and how much they disapproved. Why wasn’t
he
here to give them the answers they wanted?

‘You know,’ Nan said, stopping on the pavement in front of me. ‘I knew what he was up to all along.’

I was taken aback. ‘What?’ I said, conscious that Alfie could hear.

‘The other women,’ she said. ‘Everyone knew. Even Grandad knew.’

What was she talking about? I just looked at her, shocked and confused. Please don’t do this, I thought.
Please.
I really don’t feel up to one of your tellings-off today. But, of course, I said nothing, because to do so would only give her further opportunity to tell me things I didn’t want to hear. Or
not
tell me. Just leave me hanging, which she often did. ‘What did you expect?’ she carried on. ‘You should have looked after him properly.’

We’d reached my mother’s now, and she stomped straight off up the road, head held high, all self-righteous, sniffing her disapproval. I could still hear her as I walked through the gate.

When I got inside, I still felt knocked for six. But there was more. My older sister Susan had arrived since I’d left, and she and my mother were clearly talking about Joe too.

I asked them what they’d been saying about him, and my sister’s expression spoke volumes.

‘You live in a dream world,’ she said in a superior voice. ‘Honestly, if you only knew the truth!’

‘What truth?’ I demanded, becoming even more upset.

‘Listen,’ she said, as if I was stupid, ‘your Joe even tried to get
me
to go to bed with him. When I was
pregnant. That’s
the sort of man you married.’

That’s the sort of man you married.
I couldn’t get my sister’s words out of my head. Was there really so much more than I already knew? Who
were
all these women he’d been seeing?