Authors: Cathy Wilson
Having guests at our pokey Windlesham Gardens flat was stressful enough and the idea of cooking them a roast was doubly so. Realizing that it would also be the first time Dad met Peter just added to the pressure. What if he swore at me in front of my father? What if he criticized me or rejected my dinner or launched it at the wall? I’d die of shame.
Please let him behave.
But Peter was on his best behaviour. My meetings with Dad had usually been stilted, awkward affairs. Not this time. Peter took full control. I realized I hadn’t seen him be so effortlessly charming since those early days in the Hungry Years. The anecdotes, war yarns and good-natured humour tripped off his tongue once more, and our guests lapped it up. I was happy. He hadn’t let me down. I wish I could say the same for my dad.
Once Peter took over the hosting duties, I fled to the tiny kitchen area. It was too small to prepare the simplest of meals, really, so why I thought it would be up to the task of a roast for four I don’t know. The Belling oven was so tiny that I had to roast the chicken upside down. And as there were only two rings, vegetables were kept to a minimum. Dad came over to make small talk with me and watched as I struggled and failed to fit half the things I’d prepared into the limited space. I tried to be pleasant, to not carry any lingering resentment, to give him a chance. But I couldn’t.
I just thought,
How can you stand there and watch your worn-out daughter sweat herself stupid trying to fit a quart into a pint pot?
Surely he could have said, ‘Forget it, I’m taking you out.’
But he didn’t. He’d come for a roast and he was going to get it.
The food was fine, in the end, and we got on okay. Dad and his girlfriend made an effort to play with Daniel, but I couldn’t help feeling it was too little, too late. Dad had had a chance to rescue me from the misery of cooking and he’d blown it. Just like he’d blown every other chance with me. They left singing Peter’s praises – and vice versa – but I was in no hurry to see them again.
That episode over, I tried to get to the bottom of Peter’s obsession with the council house. It didn’t take long to crack it. Maggie Thatcher’s government had passed legislation entitling council-house dwellers to purchase their properties for a fraction of their value after a certain period of time. This was Peter’s dream. But to buy the place, you needed to be in the scheme to start with.
It was so ridiculous. I said to him, ‘If we’d kept the tea shop we could have bought our own place in a couple of years.’ He shook his head, not even listening.
‘This is the best way. Trust me.’
He’s mad.
But, again, I owed it to Daniel to try to make it work.
I found that by moving a wardrobe next to the sofa bed, I could hive off a piece of the open-plan room and give Daniel the illusion of his own space. He could still hear everything and the light would still reach him, but psychologically it felt like a different room. The problem was, though, that at nearly a year old, he still wasn’t sleeping through the night. My GP was less than helpful. When I told him the crying was making me pull my hair out, he said, ‘I can give you some Valium for that.’
Valium? I wanted to help my boy sleep, not sleep through it myself!
Then he recommended a book by a woman called Gina Ford, which taught you how to train your child to sleep – using tough love. This would involve letting Daniel cry himself out, leaving him alone for just long enough to work out:
There’s no one coming so I’d be better off sleeping.
There were two problems with this. One, Peter went berserk at the slightest whimper from our child. Much more than that and he’d storm out of the flat – just as well, given his temper. And, two, just to make things worse, Windlesham Gardens was a residence the council reserved for single mums in trouble. The whole shitty building was packed with poor women on the run from abusive husbands or recovering from problems. They needed all the help they could get. What they didn’t need was a woman choosing to let her child scream for nights on end. I just couldn’t do it to them. So Daniel continued to sleep badly and I continued to attend to his every demand. Anything for a quiet life.
God knows how long we were at that place. It felt like a lifetime, but was probably only a couple of weeks. Peter might not have been too fussed about our requirements, but the council seemed to be. Someone noticed that there were three of us and we received the keys to a new place in Chadbourne Close. On the plus side, it was a one-bedroom. On the downside, it was largely unfurnished.
Actually, there was another positive. All this moving around had given Peter a new lease of life. The more desperate our situation appeared to me, the easier he found it to adapt and to keep himself busy. Sometimes this meant him coming home with things like a large cockatiel in a brass cage, which just added to the mess. Other times, though, like when I pointed out that we needed a sofa and a cooker that worked, he said, ‘No problem. The church will give us that.’
I didn’t know when he’d done it, but he’d been down to the local Catholic church – he claimed that was his religion – and signed up for their charity scheme. Within a couple of days of moving in, they’d found us the things we needed.
When I pointed out that the place still looked like it was from another century, Peter had a solution for that as well. ‘The council will give us £400 to tart it up,’ he said, genuinely happy at the idea of something for nothing. I don’t know where he got his information from, but it was spot on.
So down we went to Homebase, or whichever shop the vouchers were for, chose some paint and wallpaper, took it all home and started to decorate. I shouldn’t need to say that I did it all – while Daniel played in his cot or crawled around. Peter had a knack for disappearing whenever there was work to be done. I didn’t care though. As much as I wanted him in Daniel’s life, I was always happier when he wasn’t around.
Once again, though, I enjoyed the work. Even the muscle-ache and stench of paint couldn’t stop me looking at the end result with a whole bunch of pride. I’d never hung wallpaper before, but now I could. Another skill I’d mastered by default, another reason never to rely on a man in the future. Especially that man.
Then a funny thing happened. ‘That man’ said we should get married.
Peter’s Glaswegian accent was so heavy that I struggled to understand everything he said. In fact, I used to joke that the reason I married him was because I didn’t understand the question.
But I understood it perfectly well and everything it meant. And still I said, ‘I do.’
Can you imagine the turmoil? On the one hand, I hated to think further ahead than tomorrow if it meant Peter was still in my life. If only he behaved with me with the same effortless charm that had wowed my father, then it might have been different. But he seemed to keep the charming side of his personality under lock and key. I knew it was there, though, and the fact that he couldn’t be bothered to get it out made me resent him more and more. I could have put up with the insults, the tantrums and the aggression much more easily if only he’d made an effort.
On the other hand, a world in which Daniel was denied access to his father – as I had been – was inconceivable to me. That was my driving force. My fondness for Peter may have seen better days – sometimes it was all I could do to remain civil to him – but I still wanted the dream that every girl has. I wanted my white dress, I wanted my husband, I wanted the father of my child in his life. And, more than anything, I wanted Daniel not to go through life as a ‘bastard’, as Grandpa undoubtedly called him. That had been shameful enough for me. I wouldn’t visit it on my own child if I could possibly help it. So I said yes.
For the next few Sundays I found myself enduring hideously long and pious sermons, just to be seen as good practising Catholics. Then, when he was happy we’d put enough hours in, Peter went off to arrange the wedding. A short while later, he returned, swearing and cursing.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘That fucking priest.’
‘What about him?’
‘He won’t marry us.’
He refused to tell me why. I got the feeling it was my fault somehow. They’d seen through my fake Catholic credentials. For a moment I felt guilty that I’d ruined Peter’s dream, even if it was a dream I’d only become aware of recently. He was happy to let me beat myself up over it. Eventually, though, the truth emerged. The priest had said it was against his beliefs to marry a divorcé. It was Peter’s fault for being married before. He was the reason we couldn’t get married there – and he’d let me take the blame.
I thought that might have been the end of it, but Peter defiantly found a Methodist minister who said yes. ‘They’ll marry anyone,’ he said.
As underwhelmed as I was by the whole spectacle, it was still my wedding day. It was still every girl’s dream occasion. I had to be seen to be making an effort. Then I realized it was an opportunity to rekindle old relationships and I perked up.
We had a joint hen and stag night, with everyone congregating at Chadbourne Close. My grandparents came, along with my aunt Anne, her husband Geoff and their children. I was also delighted to see my old vodka-drinking buddy, Peter, plus my other school friends Debbie and Sally. I suppose it was down to Peter Tobin that I’d drifted out of touch with all of them, but this was a day of reunion. Sally lent me her husband and his Daimler for my wedding car. I felt like a princess in there. When they all returned the following day everyone was on my side of the church apart from John, Peter’s old friend. For the first time in a couple of years, I didn’t feel alone.
I had £500 from Granny to organize everything – the party, Peter’s Moss Bros suit, the rings. My wedding dress, a knee-length, lacy cream dress which Granny also paid for, came from Debenhams. It was the first time in ages that I actually felt like a woman – and it felt amazing, even though I was in flat heels as usual, so as not to tower over my groom.
It was a nice day, I have to say. We got a few gifts, including, pride of place, a sewing machine from Granny. Grateful as I was, I made a mental promise not to dress my own son as far out of date as Granny had dressed me.
There was no honeymoon and, thankfully, Peter didn’t come near me. But at least Daniel was no longer what my grandfather would call a ‘bastard’. Just like Mum and Dad, Peter and I had done the right thing eventually. And I was determined our marriage would last longer than theirs.
I wonder now if the marriage had proved a wake-up call for Peter. If he’d thought he’d cut me off from my past, then the wedding, small as it was, showed he’d failed. There were my closest family – my father excepted – and three old school friends. It was a reminder to me that they were there if I needed them. I think Peter saw that too. You could interpret everything that happened next as his attempt to get me away from them. He didn’t want me – I know that now. But he didn’t want anyone else to have me either.
In the meantime, we had to get by in this tiny one-bed. No sooner were we married than I said, ‘We can’t stay here. One of us has to get a job.’
‘I’m not fucking getting one,’ he snarled, that sense of entitlement shooting to the fore. ‘I’m on disability.’
‘Well, I’ll get one then.’
He shrugged.
‘Make sure you get enough to pay for babysitters then.’
‘What do you mean? You can look after Daniel. You’re not doing anything else all day.’
That didn’t go down well. He pushed his face up so close against mine I thought he was going to bite me. ‘That’s your fucking job. See that you do it.’
I was a nervous wreck for hours after. I tried to hide it from Daniel, but I was scared. I hadn’t seen that side of Peter – that violent tendency – since Daniel was born. I thought it had passed. I was wrong. It was back and, based on past experience, now that he’d done it once, he would do it again. It was about to get worse.
But it’s all right,
I stupidly told myself,
as long as he only threatens me – and not my son.
For a while afterwards, just seeing him reminded me of his contorted face during that last burst of anger and I felt sick just being in the same room. But then he shocked me.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’
‘About getting a job?’
‘Fuck that. No, this place, you’re right. It’s too small. I’ve registered us on the council exchange scheme. We’ll be out of here in no time.’
I never gave a second thought to what he spent all day doing, but obviously a minute or two had gone into researching the rights of council-house tenants. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He could have written a book about benefit claims. Apparently you could advertise your council property to other tenants and, if both parties agreed, just swap homes.
‘Who’s going to want to swap a bigger place for this?’ I said. ‘You’d have to be desperate.’
I was right.
Obviously there was no one in Brighton mad enough to trade with us. Nor Kent, London, any of the Home Counties in fact. The nearest council with anything like a potential swap was in Corby. I didn’t have a clue where Corby was.
‘It’s in the middle of the country,’ Peter explained.
I thought anything further than London was the North, so the middle sounded close.
‘Okay then,’ I agreed, ‘let’s take a look.’
Corby turned out to be a lot further away than I’d realized. The further we travelled in the second-hand Metro Peter had come home with one day, the more I wondered what sort of person would consider giving up a three-bedroom house for a one-bed flat. Maybe they were downsizing and wanted to be near the coast?