Escape From Evil (30 page)

‘Don’t you ever tell me what to fucking do, you cunt!’

I tried to fight him off, but he was too strong. His hands were like steel on my neck. Nothing I did made any impression. I couldn’t even scream. As soon as I opened my mouth, his grip tightened, choking any sound back inside. Then I saw the dark rage in his eyes. He didn’t look human. That’s when the panic set in.

That’s when I thought,
I can’t breathe. He’s going to kill me.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Peter called me ‘cunt’ again and stormed out, still swearing.

I wasn’t listening. I was clutching my throat, willing it back to health. I could still feel where Peter’s fingers had clamped my flesh. The skin was so sore and when I coughed it felt like I was trying to swallow razor blades.

I didn’t cry. There was no point. I wasn’t upset, I was angry – with myself. Had I really thought that the abuse and the violence would be left behind in Brighton? He’d only behaved recently because he’d wanted something. Now he’d got his way, the true Peter was coming out again. I needed to get used to it.

How has my life become such a mess?

I was in the middle of nowhere – no, not even the middle. I was in the furthest reaches of nowhere and I had no friends, no money. I really felt stuck, adrift, desperate. And so, when the inevitable apology came an hour or so later, I begrudgingly relented.

‘I love you so much, hen,’ Peter said. ‘Don’t let this ruin everything.’

Immediately the pressure was on me to make amends.

‘You hurt me,’ I replied, without looking at him.

‘I know, I’m sorry.’ He put his arms around me and pulled us together. ‘It will never happen again. I swear it. Do you hear me? I swear it.’

I pulled away. Apology or not, I didn’t want to be touched.

‘Come on, pet, don’t be like that. Don’t ruin our fresh start.’

Me ruin it? I wished he’d just go away.

‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have upset you.’

That was what he’d been waiting for. I’d apologized to him. Just like a good battered wife should.

To fight the boredom, I decided to start the redecorating. The kitchen needed it most, so I told Peter what wallpaper I wanted and eventually he let me go and buy it.

‘I’ll want to see change and the receipt,’ he warned as usual.

I didn’t even question it anymore. That was just the way things were. On those occasions when I was given too much change, though, or if I spotted a coin in the street, it would go straight into my pocket. Never my purse because Peter always checked that.

It was a slow process, especially as I had to do the decorating during Daniel’s nap times. But I got there. A week later I was the proud owner of a smart new kitchen.

Peter didn’t have a good word to say about it. He complained about the mess while I was doing it and he moaned about the colours when I’d finished. He couldn’t have been more uncomplimentary if he’d tried. Still, at least Daniel and the guinea pigs seemed to enjoy running around now that it was all fresh and clean.

It turned out the guinea pigs were enjoying it too much. When they weren’t scurrying around under my feet, I’d noticed that they liked stretching over the skirting board on their hind legs. It looked cute. What I didn’t see, however, was that the reason they were doing that was to be able to nibble the bottom of the new paper. Sod’s law, it had to be Peter who noticed it first.

‘What the fuck?’ he shouted and before I could even register what he was talking about, he flung open the door and hurled one of the guinea pigs like a cricket ball up the garden. I gasped as it smashed against the shed and didn’t get up again. That’s when I realized Daniel had seen everything.

‘Stop it, Peter, for Christ’s sake, you’re scaring him!’

But he wasn’t listening. With another fierce lob, the second guinea pig sailed into the air and over the fence at the bottom of the garden.

‘Come here, Daniel, darling,’ I said and led him quickly out of the room. The sooner I got the cockatiel to distract him, the better.

I didn’t give a toss about the torn wallpaper and I couldn’t see why Peter cared so much either. I was the one who’d put it up and would have to repair the frayed edges. What really bothered me, though, was seeing how invisible Daniel was to his father in that mood. It was like he wasn’t there. And that scared me more than any threats or smacks against me.

A lot of people were feeling the brunt of Peter’s temper, not just me. He was so aggressive and so unpredictable. Being in his company was like carrying a grenade without its pin. You never knew when he was going to explode. I remember, for example, him taking me to the supermarket. The bill was only six pounds and Peter handed over a tenner. When he got his change, he immediately started shouting at the cashier. No warning, no arguing first, just pure eruption.

‘You fucking lying bitch, I gave you a twenty!’ That was it, he was off, laying into her for giving him the wrong change – which was a lie anyway because I’d seen him give her ten pounds. I still don’t know if it was a mistake or he was trying to con her. What I do know is that being scared of him had just been taken to another level. If he could turn on a stranger like this in a public place, there was no telling what he would do to me in the privacy of our own home.

I don’t know if that was the catalyst or whether it was the next time he body-checked me into the wall or the time after that, when he hit me across the dining room before falling to his knees and begging forgiveness. All I know is that, at some point, I finally woke up. I was depressed, I was bruised from his fists, I was lonely and, worst of all, I was scared to be in the same room as my own husband. The moment I admitted that, it felt like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. As they say, admitting the problem is the first step to finding a solution. Now I had admitted my problem, I realized the solution was staring me right in the face – and it had been for a long, long time.

I need to leave.

Suddenly I wasn’t scared of him anymore. In one fell swoop, one clear-cut decision, I retook control of my own destiny. From now on, it was just a matter of sorting out the practical issues. Like packing, leaving and finding somewhere else to live. First though, I had to tell Peter.

We were all upstairs when the right moment came. He seemed in a decent mood, the sun was shining, everything appeared to be in place. Following him into the bathroom, I said, ‘Peter, I’m not happy. I can’t go on with this. I want a divorce.’

He stared at me for a few seconds, then smiled and nodded.

He’s agreeing,
I was relieved to think. But then his face changed. It was like a thunder cloud had parked over his head. From smiles to a face knotted in rage in a matter of seconds. It was utterly disturbing – and it was about to get worse.

Without a word, Peter barged past me and ran across the landing to Daniel’s room. Before I could follow, he reappeared carrying our son.

‘Peter, what are you doing?’

He didn’t answer, but slowly walked towards me until he reached the top of the stairs.

Oh my God!

‘Peter! Put him down!’

He didn’t move. Holding a confused Daniel at arm’s length over the staircase, he said, ‘I’m only going to say this once. If you leave me, I will fucking hunt you down and kill you.’ Then he shook Daniel so hard I thought he was going to drop him by accident. ‘And then I’ll kill the kid.’

‘Put him down! Put him down! I’m begging you! Give him back to me, please!’ I was screaming, hysterical, but I didn’t dare go forwards. Daniel was distressed and crying, but Peter was cool as you like, just staring, daring me.

‘Okay, okay,’ I said. ‘You win. I’ll stay. I promise.’

He considered it for a second, then nodded and swung Daniel over to me. Then, without even looking back, he skipped down the stairs as calmly as if he were being called for breakfast.

When he was safely out of sight, I fell to the floor, clutching my son harder than I ever had before.

‘What have I done?’ I sobbed. ‘What have I done to you?’

Daniel didn’t answer. He was still frozen with fear.

Everything changed after that. Every aspect of our life got worse.

I was suddenly under twenty-four-hour surveillance. He confiscated my car, motorbike keys and purse, so I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything. I had a Bradford & Bingley account book with about eight grand in from the tea shop sale, but that disappeared as well. If we needed food, he accompanied me to the shops, swearing his way up and down each aisle, putting half my choices back on the shelves and refusing to lift a finger when it came to carrying the bags. I couldn’t go out to the boot of the car without him following.

If he went out he locked every door and window and took my house keys, so I was a prisoner in my own home. The worst part about that was not knowing when he would return. Every engine in the cul-de-sac, every footstep on the pavement sent a chill through me. I was soon jumping at my own shadow. If it weren’t for trying to be brave in front of Daniel, I would have gone mad.

Degrading though it was, being in solitary confinement was better than having Peter there with me. Now he no longer bothered trying to soften his language and attitude. Every other word was ‘fuck’ and he didn’t have to be in a bad mood for me to get both barrels. Sometimes I swear he would attack me for fun. After a while, I managed to tune it out. But then he started doing it in front of Daniel.

‘Where’s my tea, bitch?’

‘Clean this fucking pigsty, you lazy shit.’

‘What the fuck’s this shit on my plate?’

It was as vicious as it was relentless and I was suddenly aware of every evil syllable. I’d always sworn to prevent my son from seeing his mother hurt, as I had witnessed my own mother being abused. And I’d failed.

Daniel saw me thrown to the floor if Peter’s dinner was late, smacked across the mouth if I dared to speak out of turn and crushed under his weight against the wall if there was a single toy out of place. I hated Daniel seeing it, so I’d fight, desperate to make it look like a game. But that wasn’t good enough. Peter wanted to see me in pain; that was the point of it. The violence wasn’t about hurting me – like so many of his actions, it was about controlling me. The longer I kept smiling for my son’s sake, the harder he pulled my hair and twisted my arm and held my throat. Till, in the end, I had to give in and cry and beg him to stop. That was all he wanted. He needed me to be dependent on him. He couldn’t do it financially and he knew that. So the only means left to him were brute force and threats.

Once I’d had the idea that the move to Scotland had been devised to separate me from anyone who could help, it just wouldn’t leave my mind. Slowly, as I was beaten and cowed into submission every day, it grew stronger. Then I thought,
If he’s capable of sacrificing my successful business to feed his paranoia, what else has he done?

I flicked back over the events of our life together. The wedding – was that just another way to control me? Did he believe all that marriage vow crap about ‘honour and obey’? Did he think that if I became Mrs Tobin I would legally have to bow down to him?

Before I could find an answer, another thought blew that one clean out of my mind. What about Daniel?

That whole not being able to have children story must have been a lie. The doctor had assured me that Peter understood the repercussions of his op and I’d chosen to believe Peter instead. The more I dwelt on it, the more I felt my face begin to burn with shame.

I’m just a puppet to him.

But why had he lied? He hated having a baby in the house and refused to lift a finger to look after him. Why would he have been so desperate to have a child with me? It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t have gone to all that trouble just so I would be more reliant on him, could he? I knew, of course, that he could. He was capable of things I’d never imagined in my worst nightmares. But there was another reason.

Peter had wanted Daniel to use against me, just as Mark and Brian and those scumbags had used me against my own mother. Peter recognized that I had an independent streak the day we met. That had scared him and he’d sought to tame me. Aggression and bullying at the flat and cottage hadn’t worked. I’d always bounced back, dusted myself down and been ready for the next battle. Peter knew it would take a special weapon to control me – and in Daniel he’d been handed it.

The more I raked over the past with these fresh eyes, the more I cried. I wouldn’t have given up Daniel for the world, but I was as guilty as Peter for bringing him into this violent and loveless marriage. If you marry without love, you deserve what you get. I’d been naïve and flattered by Peter’s attentions and what he could offer me. Everything that had gone wrong, I’d found an excuse for. The truth was there, but I hadn’t listened. I should have walked, rescued Daniel from this hell he hadn’t asked to be born into.

The only good news I could draw from my situation was that Daniel was a lot younger than I had been when I’d witnessed the attacks and bullying against my mother. He was barely two. I prayed they wouldn’t scar him, as I was scarred seeing her being set alight and raped in front of my eyes.

Sexually, at least, Peter had left me alone since we’d arrived in Bathgate. In fact, we had barely had sex at all since I’d started to show at around three months pregnant. A year ago it had really bothered me. A woman wants to feel desired by her partner. I’d struggled to shift the four-stone pregnancy fat and I blamed that for his lack of interest.