I Looked Away, page 27
So I was heartbroken when Luke finally fulfilled his threat and emigrated to Australia. ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ he’d said one evening, when he’d overheard Roger and me rowing again. ‘I don’t want to be near that man any more. You might be able to turn a blind eye but I can’t. I’ll never forget that phone call I overheard. He makes me sick. I’ve told him so.’
Roger, of course, told all our friends how proud he was of our son taking such an ‘adventurous step’. But I could hardly bear to look at my husband. ‘This is your fault,’ I hissed in bed that night.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t help it if a silly young man gets ideas in his head.’
After Luke went, the silent phone calls stopped. Roger also started coming home from work earlier than he used to. At first, I wasn’t sure how we’d cope without the children to bind us together. But over the next few months and then years, Roger and I settled into a fairly comfortable routine. By now he’d retired: a move which surprised me, as I thought he’d carry on for longer. But he was ‘tired’ of teaching and wanted time to write that novel he’d been banging on about for years.
I forced myself to overcome the fear of making new friends and joined the tennis club. I also threw myself into voluntary work, particularly with a local prison and also a homeless charity, as I’d always been saddened by the number of people living on the streets around us. Roger and I even went to Toronto and Vancouver. It was our first holiday on our own! Apart from the sex, which I had to force myself into, it was amazing. Perhaps we’d weathered the worst. I began to take more care with my appearance and even booked myself in for a make-up consultation. Why hadn’t I worn foundation before? It suited me.
‘Do you want to come and visit me in Australia?’ Luke suggested during one of our mother-and-son phone calls.
‘We’d love to,’ I told him.
‘Not him.’ Our son’s voice was tight. ‘Just you.’
‘Maybe,’ I said doubtfully. ‘If he lets me.’
‘It’s your life, Mum.’
But it wasn’t. I just wish I’d been able to keep Roger’s cheating from the children.
Amy had surprised us all when she’d announced she was getting married. ‘You’re so young,’ I couldn’t help saying when she rang to tell us. ‘And you haven’t even graduated yet.’
‘Don’t worry, Mum. We’ll manage.’
When she brought her fiancé back to meet us, Roger and I were pleasantly relieved. I could tell that Charles was a good man – not the kind to mess around. Or so he seemed.
The following month, Amy coyly announced that she had a ‘surprise’.
My heart sank. I knew it. ‘Are you …’ I started to say.
‘Yes, Mum.’ Her face glowed. ‘I am! We’ve already had a scan but we decided not to ask about the sex. We don’t want to know.’
‘That’s … amazing.’
‘Mum? Are you all right?’
I ran into the downstairs cloakroom just in time. Everything I’d just eaten for lunch came pouring out. It was nerves. Shock. What if history repeated itself? Sheila’s screams flashed into my head. Supposing something went horribly wrong? My daughter wasn’t ready for a child. How would she keep it safe?
‘Sorry,’ I said when I got back. ‘It must have been something I ate.’
‘Or perhaps you’ve got sympathetic morning sickness,’ chipped in Roger, looking pleased at his own joke. ‘Now let’s get on with planning the wedding, shall we?’
For a man who had been so careless with his own wedding vows, Roger was determined that his grandchild wasn’t going to be born out of wedlock. As he walked our daughter down the aisle, with that all-too-visible bump, his face beamed with pride. For my part, I was a bag of nerves.
During Amy’s pregnancy, I continued to be terrified about my grandchild’s imminent birth, imagining all kinds of horrendous scenarios. I also hoped with all my heart that it would be a girl.
Then we got the call from our son-in-law, to say Amy had gone into labour. Together, Roger and I paced the floors of a London hospital. ‘It will be all right,’ he said, squeezing my arm. Ironically, I felt closer to him than ever before.
At last a midwife came out, beaming. ‘You can come through now!’
I ran. Nothing could stop me. In my daughter’s arms was a small, pink, wrinkled scrap.
‘You have a grandson, Mum!’
A flash of Michael’s blond curls came into my head. I began to cry.
‘Sorry,’ I gulp. ‘I’m just so emotional. He’s really tiny.’
‘He’s nearly nine pounds, Mum!’
Roger seemed stunned. ‘Am I really a grandfather? I feel too young.’
Trust my husband to bring the attention back to himself, I thought.
‘Do you want to hold him, Mum?’
What if I dropped him? My old fears came flooding back. But all eyes were on me. I couldn’t say no. It would look too odd.
Gingerly I cradled this little bundle in my arms. My grandson’s eyes stared up at me trustingly. If only you knew, I thought, looking down at him. You wouldn’t love me then. No one would.
Then my daughter began to cry. ‘I’m scared, Mum. I don’t know what to do with a baby. Supposing I get it wrong?’
My son-in-law looked nervous too.
They needed me, I realized. I had to be strong for my daughter and her family. Somehow, I had to try to put the past behind me for their sake. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, more confidently than I felt. ‘We’re here for you. Aren’t we, Roger?’
I glanced up at him. He nodded. ‘Yes.’
Josh’s birth changed everything. He brought Roger and me together in a way we had never been when our own children were little. Amy and Charles had set up home in London and we spent nearly every weekend driving there and back so we could be with him. When Amy got a job as a PR executive, we would often go up to look after him for days at a time.
I had resolved that I would stay strong for my daughter, and I was as good as my word. I refused to allow myself to panic even when Josh, who had recently started to toddle, banged his head on the corner of the table. ‘Are you sure he’s all right?’ asked Roger.
‘He’s fine, aren’t you, Josh?’ I said. Within seconds he’d stopped crying.
‘You seem far more relaxed with him than you were with my children,’ commented my husband. He often used the word ‘my’ as if to reinforce possession.
‘But it’s not the same this time,’ I replied, ‘because you can give them back at the end of the day when you’re a grandparent.’ I didn’t explain I was determined not to pass on my fears.
‘You look different,’ commented one of my friends on the homeless charity soup-kitchen team. ‘There’s a real glow about you.’
When I looked in the mirror I could see she was right. Nothing had prepared me for that intense, fierce love in my chest for Josh. His birth even made me even more sensitive to the injustices of the world. I found myself crying over a documentary about families in Britain who could barely afford to feed their kids. I didn’t like the idea of my grandson growing up in a world where you could have immense wealth and also people sleeping rough on the street. So I offered my help at the food bank, upped my hours in the soup kitchen and always bought a sandwich and coffee for the lady with the shaved head selling the Big Issue outside Boots. ‘There but for the grace of God go any of us,’ I told myself.
Josh was speaking now, although he couldn’t get his tongue round ‘Granny’ so I became ‘Ganny’. Every time we arrived at their place, he would fly into my arms, hugging me and plastering me with kisses.
I would die for him, I knew. I would do anything in the world to keep him safe. I just wished I could see him more often.
Not long after Josh’s first birthday, my daughter called. ‘How would you feel if we moved down to Oxfordshire, near you?’ sang Amy’s excited voice.
By then we had moved from our original village cottage. Roger had cleverly invested some of my trust fund in shares and they had done well enough for us to buy a pretty cream-and-yellow Queen Anne house on the outskirts of a bustling market town not far from Oxford.
‘Charles has been offered a transfer. The money is brilliant and because of the difference in house prices, I can afford to work part-time – as long as you don’t mind helping out.’
‘I’d love to!’ I exclaimed.
My happiness was complete. Roger and I were better than ever before, and I had my precious grandson. I allowed myself to think that I had finally emerged from the darkness. This was my new start.
Then, one day, I had a visitor. I had just come back from a ‘raising money for duvets’ committee meeting, I found a taxi waiting outside. Roger met me at the doorway. His face was set. My first thought was Josh. ‘What’s happened?’
‘There’s someone to see you,’ he said. ‘She’s in the sitting room.’
‘Who?’ I asked, trembling. Please don’t let it be another of Roger’s liaisons. Hadn’t he promised to put that behind him?
My husband looked at me steadily. ‘She says she’s your stepmother.’
At that moment, I knew it was over. I’d been waiting all my life for this.
My mouth went dry. ‘I can explain …’
‘Later,’ he said. ‘I think you’d better go in and see her first.’
I barely recognized the woman perched stiffly on the edge of my sofa. Gone was the heavy eye make-up. Her face was creased now like a tortoise’s skin. She was grasping a walking stick. But her eyes were as accusing as they had been on the last terrible occasion I’d seen her. ‘I’ve come to tell you in person about your father,’ she said.
I sat down heavily.
‘As I’ve already told your husband, he died last week.’
I couldn’t take it in. My daddy, who had comforted me when my mother had died. I had ruined his life and now I’d never be able to make it up to him. Yet my throat was closing up with grief, regret and anger – not just towards him but towards myself as well. ‘How?’ I asked.
‘They said it was pneumonia.’ She staggered to her feet and advanced towards me, beating her stick on the ground. ‘But I know it was a broken heart. You caused his death, Ellie. Just as you killed my son.’
54
Jo
We go along a big noisy road past these old stone walls and gaping arches without windows that are just standing in the middle of the traffic on a roundabout. ‘Used to be a church that got bombed during the war,’ the market guy says, noticing me looking at it.
‘Why haven’t they built it again?’ I ask, shouting over the traffic.
‘Maybe it’s to make us remember the past.’
I shiver. Better forgotten, in my book.
It’s getting dark and cold. My tooth is throbbing so much that I can’t think straight. My feet drag.
‘Not long now,’ he says as we turn down a side street. ‘My name’s Nick, by the way, and this is Madge. What’s yours?’
‘Jo.’ No one asks for your surname on the street.
‘Where’ve you been travelling, then, Jo?’
‘All over.’
I speak shortly because my mouth hurts. But I’m also nervous. Never give too much away. Someone gave me that bit of advice years ago. I’ve already broken it more times than I should.
We go left and then right. Finally, we get to a small terraced house with a boarded-up window in front. There’s a dustbin on the path with the lid off. A cat is sniffing round an empty tin on the cracked paving stones. Nick takes a key out of his pocket with a long string attached to it. It takes a bit of time to open the door but then it eases.
‘Come on in.’
I breathe in the smell of fags and weed. Booze too. There’s heavy metal playing. ‘Turn that bloody rubbish down!’ yells a bloke sitting cross-legged in front of me. Then he closes his eyes like he’s sleeping upright.
‘That one’s into meditation,’ says Nick.
A stack of bikes is leaning against a wall. No carpet. Just floorboards. There’s some flowery, faded blue-and-pink wallpaper that’s peeling off like it’s damp. Trainers are all over the floor along with hoodies and empty crisp packets and beer tins.
Madge notices me looking. ‘There are quite a few of us here,’ she says. ‘But we all fit in.’ Her eyes narrow. ‘Why are you holding your jaw like that?’
‘Toothache,’ I groan.
‘You’ve come to the right place, then.’ Nick slings his arm around his girlfriend. ‘My Madge used to be a dental nurse.’
‘Want me to take a look?’ Her voice is kind. Gentle. Not jealous, like it was before. Maybe now she’s had a chance to look at me properly, she can see I’m no competition.
I nod.
‘Come into the kitchen.’
It’s so tiny that I can barely get in. There are five or six people, sitting or leaning against the sink, smoking roll-ups. Empty takeaway cartons are everywhere and there’s a stench of Chinese food. The sink is piled high with dirty mugs. The floor is sticky to walk on.
‘Make a space for the lady, can you?’
Madge gets me to sit down at a kitchen table that wobbles when I touch it. Then she opens a drawer and takes out a tin box. ‘Just got to put my tools in boiling water for a minute.’
‘Can’t resist a mouth, can you, love?’ says a man with a stomach the size of a football.
‘Piss off. The lady needs help. Open up.’
The pain has muddled my head so much that it takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me.
‘Bloody hell. I see. Looks like it needs to come out. Here, take these.’
She presses two pills into my hand.
‘What are they?’
‘Just swallow them. They’ll dull the pain.’
‘Give us some of them, can you?’ asks someone else.
‘Shut up and let me concentrate.’
After a bit, I begin to feel spaced out. Then I see Madge holding a pair of pliers. ‘No,’ I say, trying to push her away.
‘It’s OK, love. It’ll all be over in a minute.’
The pain! It’s like my mouth’s being dragged out of my head. ‘Stop!’ I want to yell. But I can’t talk because she’s pulling away like there’s no tomorrow.
‘Shit, Madge,’ says someone. ‘She’s bleeding like a stuck pig.’
‘Spit into this,’ says Madge. ‘Better come and lie down for a bit.’
I don’t remember much more.
2.10 p.m., 17 August 1984
We race through the garden, taking care to duck and dive under trees to avoid Michael, who would be hiding himself. At last we reach the copse. ‘He won’t be here,’ I gasp, standing against a silver birch, ignoring the possibility of bark stains on my dress. ‘We told him it was out of bounds. Remember?’
Peter laughs. ‘That was pretty clever.’ Then he moves towards me. ‘At last,’ he whispers.
I can hardly breathe as his mouth comes down on mine. His tongue probes as though it’s looking for something. The girls had been right. It does feel yucky. Or maybe I’m doing it wrong.
But then he takes my head in his hands and softens his tongue a bit, and suddenly it all seems wonderfully natural. He gives a little groan, almost as if he’s in pain.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he says. We kiss some more, and I forget about everything.
Then his hands begin to touch the outline of my breasts. ‘No,’ I say, breaking off.
He frowns. ‘Why not?’
I don’t want to tell him that I’m scared. One of the girls at school has a sister who got pregnant from ‘going too far’. Apparently that meant she’d allowed a boy to touch her in parts that weren’t allowed until you were married.
The trouble was that I didn’t know which parts.
‘I don’t want to take any risks,’ I say, repeating a word the other girls had used a few times when discussing sex. I’m not even sure what this means. But Peter appears to understand.
‘We won’t,’ he says softly. ‘But nothing can happen if I touch you above the waist.’
‘Are you sure?’ I ask.
His voice is thick. ‘Absolutely.’
His hand begins to stroke my chest over my top. My body starts doing strange things, pressing up against him. Then somehow we are on the earth, and I can feel Peter’s hand on my bare thigh.
‘I can’t find you,’ calls out Michael’s voice faintly.
Peter’s mouth is bending down to kiss me again. His hands are exploring further. I should say no.
But I am lost.
55
Ellie
Sheila looked up at Roger, who was standing, clearly shocked, a few feet away from me. ‘I don’t know how you can live with a killer.’
That’s when I realized. My stepmother had banked on the fact that I hadn’t confided in my husband. Her final act of revenge was to destroy the life I had built up for myself. And she’d succeeded.
‘I didn’t …’ I started.
‘Don’t make excuses!’ she thundered. ‘You and I know the truth. And just in case you try to make up even more lies, I have told your husband everything.’ Then she turned to Roger. ‘Perhaps you would escort me outside now to my taxi.’
I sank, stunned, in my chair by the French windows overlooking the garden. When my husband came back, he took my stepmother’s place on the sofa at the other end of the room as if he wanted to be as far away from me as possible.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about Michael?’ he said coldly.
‘Because you wouldn’t have married me,’ I cried out. ‘Would you?’
His silence was enough.
‘Please don’t tell the children,’ I begged. ‘Amy would never let me look after Josh again.’
‘Are you fit to do so?’
‘Yes,’ I wept.
‘I always thought there was something odd about you.’ He was speaking as if to himself. ‘You were in a loony bin for four years.’
