Authors: Barbara Copperthwaite
I wish he’d do something
like this for me. I know it’s pathetic and needy, but I genuinely really do
need something wonderful right now. Need a bit of magic.
Feeling
a bit low, actually.
Still, Daryl’s going to
start seeing a therapist and I’m really proud of him for that. But that’s for
him, not me. If I’m honest I’m terrified he’ll turn around after a few sessions
and say, ‘Thanks for standing by me and being there for me but actually I’ve
realised our problems stem from the fact I don’t love you. That’s why I can’t
commit properly to this marriage. That’s why I work all hours and am never
around. That’s why I don’t want kids…with you.’
I don’t want to be alone.
Tues 12
Daryl really genuinely is
making the effort with me. He called me at work today, at 11.30am, and asked if
I could nip out – because he was outside waiting for me! So we went to a café
round the corner for half an hour. Very naughty!
I was terrified I’d be
caught and get a telling off from the boss, and it meant I was behind for the
rest of the day, but I don’t care! I’ll put my headphones on tomorrow and
ignore the world and get the report typed up double-quick. I always work better
under pressure.
Anyway, back to D. Yes, he
is making an effort. He even called me tonight at 10pm, before he started work,
just to say hello.
Sweet.
Mind you, when I asked him
earlier when his appointment with the counsellor was he said it was ‘top of his
list of priorities to sort’ today. And he didn’t mention it just now on the
phone so I bet he hasn’t done it. That will be the real test of how much effort
he’s making, whether he really does start seeing someone or if he was just
agreeing to keep me happy…
Change of subject! Kim sent
me a text yesterday morning saying she and Sam had had a big row and he’d hit
he. She has a black eye!
Very dramatic and very worrying.
She hasn’t told me what happened properly yet, but presumably she finished with
him like she said she was going to, and it all kicked off.
Well, at least a black eye
should show her once and for all that he is to be steered well clear of, that
there is no going back after something like that
I’m sorry, but ever since
she got together with runty Sam her life has been one drama after another.
She’s a gorgeous, model-like 5ft 10in Asian woman who has the shiniest waist-length
black hair like flipping Rapunzel. The problem is, she is a single mum to little
Henry, a cheeky three-year-old who keeps her on her toes – and makes her
convinced that as a single mum she will never be able to find a decent man who
will take her on. So she puts up with Psycho Sam instead, who has
mousey-coloured hair to go with his rat-like features, weak build and 5ft 9in
stature. I’d like to say he’s got a nice personality, but no, he’s possessive
and weird. It’s no surprise to me that such a wimp feels the need to ‘prove
himself a real man’ by slapping his girlfriend around and belittling her.
Pathetic!
When I see her I’ll have to
sit her down and have a proper good chat with her. Get the whole story, and
talk some sense into her. To think, she says she worries about me and Daryl! Oh
the irony! Not that I’m going to say anything to her like that, of course,
because the fact is I’m dead worried for her. She needs to get out of that
relationship before that nutter hurts her.
At the moment though, the
poor love is in hiding at home from what I can make out, because she has a
black eye and is too ashamed to be seen in work. She’ll have to come back in
eventually though, she can’t stay away until it fades altogether surely;
that’ll be days and days and she just can’t afford to miss so much work.
I’m tempted to call her. I
keep staring at the phone as though somehow the useless lump of plastic will
help me know what the right thing is to do. I’ve even picked it up a couple of
times, stared at it a bit more,
then
put it down with
a sigh.
If I call her and Sam is
there and answers it, will he guess I know what happened? Will I just make
things worse for her? But what if she’s all alone and feeling like no one
cares? I really don’t know what to do, but at the moment I’m opting for doing
nothing. Interfering in people’s private lives is never a good idea, is it? Kim
will come to me when she wants someone to talk to.
Weds 13
Daryl and I went for a walk
along the beach today because I finished work early. It was perfect. We were
looking at all the shells and Daryl found a beautiful little white rock, rubbed
smooth by the sea, with a black, flint hole worn through the middle of it that
shone.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I smiled.
‘Not as beautiful as you.
Nowhere near,’ he shrugged. ‘You’re my Gorgeous.’ Then he put his arm round me
and we watched the sun setting over the waves. It was one of those rare,
perfect times. I popped the rock in my pocket. I’ll remember that moment
forever.
That’s
when it hit me, what I should give him for Valentine’s Day.
I’ll give him the rock. It’s symbolic of that perfect moment we shared, of all
the perfect moments we’ve shared, and the fact that he’s my rock.
He’s the person I want to
spend my life with, and I can always rely on him to be there for me. Maybe not
immediately, because of his job, but when it comes down to it he’d drop
everything and be there for me, I’m certain. If my life were in danger, like
happens in films sometimes, the first person I’d call would be Daryl. There’s
something so strong and capable about him, he’s so able to think outside the
box and just is unlike other people. I know he’d take on the world without
hesitation if someone tried to hurt me. He’s a very physical man; yes he lacks
a bit of the emotional expression sometimes, but he’s my rock, unchanging, reliable,
beautiful
in his hardness. I feel really pleased by
the idea.
Thurs 14
I gave him a rock. ‘Because
you’re my rock,’ I explained to him. He looked down at the stone with the hole
in it, the one we’d picked up together on the beach, and his face was totally
blank. He didn’t get it. It meant nothing to him. And I felt like a total prat.
I gave him a rock. What the
hell was I thinking?
Fri 15
Keep thinking about Kim. I
wonder how she’s
doing?
I haven’t heard from Daryl
today. Very paranoid he’ll let me down. Don’t know what is wrong with me, am
very emotional.
Cried on train to work this morning, cried in
the loos at work…am crying all the time, at the drop of a hat, in fact.
Also very changeable.
For a second I wondered if it was
crazy hormones, and got so excited because I thought I might be pregnant. Then
I got nervous at the idea of it actually being real, and was kind of relieved
when I realised I couldn’t possibly be pregnant.
It got me thinking though.
How would Daryl actually feel if I were expecting? I mean, if an ‘accident’
were to happen? Maybe I should just plan an accident…? But the thought makes me
feel panicky and tight in the chest, like I’m being constricted. It
feels…wrong.
The thing is I do
desperately want a child but Daryl needs to be around more otherwise I might as
well be a single mother. Raising a child is hard work and if he’s still away
trucking all the
time then I don’t
think I can cope. I
want a family not just a child – baby, mum and dad, all together, not just with
dad popping in occasionally when he feels like it, enjoying all the good bits.
Sometimes he does agree to
trying
but within hours he is denying it, or moving the
goalposts. ‘In two years’ is his favourite thing. ‘We’ll try in two years,’ he
says. But he’s been saying that for the last six years, and yet somehow the
right time still hasn’t arrived. I’m like little orphan bloody Annie, singing
about how ‘tomorrow is always a day away’.
Besides, there’s a slightly
cynical bit of me that suspects Daryl when he decides he wants me to have a
kid. I feel like he suggests it to shut me up and maybe to control me a bit
more. It’s terrible of me to think like that, isn’t
it.
Truly, if I think he’s capable of such manipulation then why on earth am I with
him? No, he couldn’t do such an awful thing.
He can be so changeable
though. Sometimes I feel like I’m riding a rollercoaster, our relationship is
that same mix of euphoria and terror and out-of-control feeling and everything
is just rushing towards me but it’s too quick for me to react, to take it in or
understand it, it’s just an emotional blur and only when I get off at some
point, with shaky legs and hammering heart, will I be able to stand back and
look at it for what it is. And think ‘wow, I survived that!’ and laugh because
it’s brilliant and fun, and a bit scary. And want to do it again.
I mean, just look at the
last month. I’ve been reading back some of the stuff I’ve written (so glad I
started keeping this diary!) and I’m all over the place. Bored, wanting to
finish things, paranoid that Daryl is manipulating me – then desperate for a
baby, head over heels in love.
He’s right, the problem is
me not him.
But life with him can be…not
scary, but definitely…unpredictable and heart-racing. He’s always either one
extreme or the other, there is no halfway with him. Of course that’s also what
attracts me to him, I suppose. He does have an air of danger about him, but he
also has the biggest, loudest laugh and a grin that just transforms his
sometimes stern-looking face. I mean, he actually throws his head back with
laughter; how many people do that?
When I try to describe him
to people he sounds like a caricature almost. He’s too large for life.
His laugh too big, his smile too wide, his temper too huge.
How can I best explain it to someone who doesn’t know him? Well, there is one
way of illustrating it…
After heavy rain, we love to
go for a walk. There’s something exhilarating about the heavy, tinny, soil
smell that hangs in the air, the charge of electricity that seems to stay there
and freshen everything up. As we walk, Daryl will stop and pick up wriggling
earthworms which have strayed onto the pavement.
‘They’ll get squashed by
people,’ he explains. He carefully handles them, like they are the most
precious cargo in the world, and places them onto a nearby grass verge.
Our walks always take
forever after a rainstorm, but I never mind because seeing this strapping,
muscular man with massive hands delicately saving worms is one of the most
heart-melting sights in the world to me. Imagine that.
Then imagine the day I heard
a meow in the house. I’d thought I was going mad as I’d looked around, because
there wasn’t any sign of a cat. Then it had come again, sounding really muffled,
and I’d slowly realised it seemed to be coming from the cupboard under the
stairs.
The poor thing must have
sneaked into the house when I’d left the front door open while I was backwards
and forwards washing the car, I’d thought in horror, and got trapped somehow in
the cupboard. So I’d opened it up expecting to find a hungry, thirsty and
possibly very annoyed cat. But I couldn’t see one anywhere.
When I’d heard the meow
again I’d frozen because…there was one of those free rucksacks you get on
magazines and stuff sometimes, you know, the really light, thin ones…and it had
just moved.
For a second, maybe even
longer to be honest, I’d just stood there, stock still, thinking: ‘It’s moving,
and the meow is coming from there, which means there’s a cat in there. But
there can’t be a cat in there, how could there be a cat in there? I mean, how
the bloody hell would it manage to not only sneak into the house and get
trapped in the cupboard, but also clamber for some unknown reason into a bag –
and then pulled the drawstring tight behind it so that it couldn’t get out. Oh,
and tie a knot in that drawstring too.’
Like someone had cut the
strings holding me in place, I’d moved suddenly.
Leapt
forward, shaky fingers undoing the knot, pulling the bag open, and lifting a
terrified moggy free of its prison.
Then Daryl’s voice had
sounded behind me. ‘That’ll teach the little shit to come in here again,’ he’d
said. Then he’d laughed. Well, chuckled. Which in a way is more sinister,
because a chuckle is so kind of little and light-hearted, isn’t it; more sort
of innocent.
And you know how sometimes
people say they felt like their blood froze in their veins? Well, I reckon mine
did too. I went shivery cold from head to toe, actually got
goosebumps
all over. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, because I was terrified.
Terrified of my fella.
The man I share a bed with, tell my
secrets to, have vowed to stay with until the day I die.
Even remembering that day
makes me feel cold. But then I remember the earthworms and realise that I was
just being silly. I’ve got an overactive imagination; Mum’s always said so. But
see what I mean about Daryl?
Two extremes, never a middle
ground.
Roaring with laughter, roaring with rage.
Supportive, cutting.
Cruel, kind.