Mostly though, when in public, he entertains. He makes people smile and that makes him happy and the
audience either falls in love with him or at least begrudgingly admires him. When things are working for him, Paul is around. But then he disappears for months at a time and I know that, under the funny, Paul doesn’t find life all that easy. He’s stuck between me and Penny: too much hard and too much easy fighting inside him. Maybe that’s why, like you, he drinks too much and smokes too much. Maybe that’s his way out of the drift. He drives fast cars and earns silly sums of money, but nothing is stable around him. He spends more than he earns with a desperation that I think most people can’t see. I can, though. Even at barely twenty I can see. Still, you can’t tell Paul. No one can. And despite it all I love him and begrudgingly admire him.
I have boyfriends too. I don’t glow like Penny, but I am tall and slim and my sandy hair falls to my shoulders and when we go out together we look good – different enough, but both shining with youth. We often double-date, but there is nothing serious going on under the warmth of the wine and the man’s touch. Not for either of us.
Until that moment when, out of the blue, it happens. I meet him.
The One.
Whatever.
I often wonder how things would’ve been if we’d gone to a different bar or just gone home, but playing ‘what if’ games with the events of your life is a road to
madness and I don’t need any more of those. My head is a network of those paths that I can see when I shut my eyes. What is, is. What was, was.
He doesn’t speak to Penny as we push our way to the bar, my sister already peering around for some willing male volunteer to buy the drinks we can’t afford to buy for ourselves. He smiles straight at me. His teeth are white. I notice that. His smile is wide and his eyes twinkle under his dark hair. I smile back, the bar, the drink and even Penny forgotten.
‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Hi,’ I say, right back. I fall in love in a snap. I can almost hear it inside. Within two months we are living in his large house in Notting Hill. I have a golden ring on my finger which proves his promise of unending love. I am the fairy-tale princess and have my fairy-tale ending. And all in that snap.
A year or so later, the snaps I hear are different. More varied. Subtle variations on a theme. I can hear the sharp snap in the air when his mood changes suddenly. I can feel the tension that grips my shoulders and my gut.
What now?
the pang asks. What did I say wrong? Did I put the cans in the cupboard unevenly? Is the TV remote control slightly out of place on the table? Or is it just one of those days?
Onomatopoeia is the key to my existence during my married years.
Snap. Crack. Slap. Bang:
sounds that belong in comic books rather than in my world. There’s
no Superman to come and save me, though. My battle is quieter and more pathetic than that. The kind you just have to get on with on your own.
Some of the sounds I like. The click of the front door as it shuts behind him when he goes to work. The gasp of held air I can release when the house is my own. I don’t relax though. Never – not entirely. Since I no longer work, he schedules my day for me. There is cleaning and shopping and cooking and ironing. Sometimes I get things done quickly and try to watch a film or read a magazine on the sofa, but it makes my stomach knot too much to enjoy. He rings every hour to make sure everything is as it should be and sometimes he comes home early to surprise me.
I don’t think he’d like to find me with my feet up, reading something pithy about hair and make-up and the lives of celebrities. In fact, I know he wouldn’t like it. Reading isn’t something he likes me to do. He can’t share in reading. It can only be in my head and try as he might he can’t get all the way in there. That’s part of what will make me take the job in the library, years later. A way-too-late kick in the balls to someone long ago left behind.
I don’t know exactly when he starts to show himself through his cracks. Not long after we are married, maybe two or three months. I am sitting on one of the huge leather sofas that fill our expensive lounge, hanging up the phone after a long girly chat with Penny and then
I jump out of my seat with the smack as the remote control hits the wall beside me. I stare at him, confused. I can’t believe that he threw it. Not at me, not then, but that he threw it at all.
‘I was watching the film,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t hear it over your pointless drivel and now I don’t have a clue what is happening.’ He is calm but his words are sharp and cold and I stare at him, my heart pounding hard, my face hot.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble.
‘Only call your sister once a week from now on.’ He turns his head back to the TV. We sit in silence and with a cold dread I feel the paper walls of my castle crumple and sag.
Most things in life change gradually. Events creep up on you from behind just like the language. You barely notice the beginnings; it’s only when things go terribly wrong that we wipe the sleep from our eyes and wail miserably, ‘How the hell did that happen?’ Still, that’s the way for all of us. Even you with your Zen and your calm intelligence. You brush off and put aside the first symptoms of the cancer that is killing you.
It’s just a touch of indigestion
, that’s what you think.
Nothing to worry about
.
I am like that with the malignancy in my marriage. The first few symptoms of my fairy-tale prince’s very flawed character are easy to brush aside. After a few cautious, watchful days of everything going back to
normal, I put the remote-control incident into a box in my head where I don’t have to think about it. He must have just had a bad day at work. This is what I tell myself when I lie awake in the warmth of our bed, listening to the gentle sounds of his breath as he sleeps. Neither of us mentions it. I don’t mention it to Penny either and I tell myself that’s because it’s not worth mentioning, despite the faint echo of alarm bells ringing in my subconscious. I don’t want to tell Penny, that’s the truth of it. I think she will be disappointed in me, or worse, maybe she will be expecting it, because it is all too good to be true.
Three months later I can no longer ignore the symptoms.
He comes to pick me up from the office and I come out laughing with a male colleague. I don’t know why we’re laughing, probably just a small, polite joke shared in a lift by two people who barely know each other. My smile falls when I get into the car and see his face. The tyres screech.
He doesn’t speak for two days other than to call the agency and tell them I won’t be coming back to work. I cry a lot. I ask him what I’ve done. He pins me down on the bed, straddling me, his knees on my arms. Leaning forward he spits in my face, his hands on my face, fingers pressing into my eyes. His words assault me until his rage passes and then he cries himself. I shake inside as he retreats into a ball in the corner. I feel sorry for him.
I feel sorry for me. He seems so vulnerable and I sit on the carpet too and wrap my bruised arms around him.
‘Hush,’ I say. ‘It’ll be all right. We’ll be all right. I don’t care about work. I won’t go anymore. I just care about you. About us.’
I think I can mend him. This is my mistake because he’s not broken, he’s just been put together wrong. The only breakable thing in the relationship is me.
I live in a drift, not a deep one, but a dark one, and I save whatever shine I can muster for when Penny and Paul come and visit, which isn’t as often as they’d like, especially Penny, but more than enough for me to cope with. I live on a wire and the stress of visitors is enough to send me over the edge. They add an unknown quantity to my day. I can never judge what they might say or do, or what I may say or do in a brief relaxed moment that may need to be paid for later. I avoid drinking when we have visitors. I need to keep my wits about me. I’m good at pretending, though. I don’t think anyone notices. My brother and sister are far too busy being happy for me.
I watch him talk with them as we laugh over wine and more of Paul’s tall stories and I wonder how they don’t see me flinch when he casually rests his hand around my shoulders. The hand that has pushed and pulled and squeezed and punched me. I try to remember that it has also loved, but just like the ring that doesn’t fit my thinned finger anymore, the idea of love has long
since disappeared. There is something going on between us, but it isn’t love.
Time passes in grey waves and I have no real concept of it outside of hourly telephone calls, bruises, insults and terrifying moments of affection. I have closed down. There is me and him and I can’t give attention to anyone else. It’s too exhausting. Penny goes to Turkey to live on a boat with a man she has met, and Paul disappears. I don’t worry about Paul and I doubt Penny does. We understand. Another business has gone bust and he is hiding.
Paul owes him money, though. Not a large amount, and I never even knew about the loan, but it’s great fight ammunition. How my family are a drain on him. Just like me.
I don’t see Paul for two years. Like Penny, he prefers things easy, and out of sight is out of mind. He doesn’t like to look at things that make him feel bad, but then you know that already. You don’t see him much either and I figure he owes you money, too. You have come back from the Shetlands, admitting defeat on your second attempt at marriage, determined to clean up and I fob you off. I know it upsets you, but I need to live my insanity in peace. I’m sorry, Dad.
Then things change again. My eyes constantly burn with exhaustion. I don’t sleep much anymore and that’s probably why, once again, I don’t notice the early symptoms. I’m too preoccupied with surviving day to day
and telling myself that things aren’t that bad to realise that a little thing like a period has gone missing.
I am at the counter in Waitrose when I suddenly feel sick, badly sick, dizzy and queasy like the first attack in a dangerous case of food poisoning. I leave my basket and dash into the toilets. I am sure I am going to throw up. My skin sweats cold and I throw handfuls of water on to my face before sitting heavily on a toilet seat, locking the cubicle behind me. I hug the cistern, not caring about any germs, enjoying the cold ceramic. Dark spots gather in the corners of my vision and the world swims slightly as I fight to control the nausea. I can’t be sick. I don’t want to be sick. I have to get home before the next phone call.
I sit very still for ten minutes or so and then trust myself enough to stand. The worst of it has passed, only a clingy wet feeling is left in my gut and my mouth tastes stale. Ignoring the strange looks that must be coming my way I collect my basket and pay. I need to get home.
At eight o’clock the next morning I am dry-heaving over the kitchen sink, the sickness grabbing me too quickly to get to the toilet. He stares at me, putting down his toast.
‘Maybe you should go to the doctor,’ he suggests quietly.
‘I’ll be all right,’ I say. ‘It’s probably just a bug.’
He nods and hands me some kitchen roll to wipe the
saliva from my mouth. The doctor can be tricky. I only go if I really have to because I just can’t be sure of the reaction. A doctor, like a book, is out of his control. He can’t be sure of what I might say within those private walls.
I don’t go to the doctor, I just fight the queasiness for a couple of days, but he can see that I’m doing it. I see him watching me. That causes more sharp twists in my gut that don’t help the nausea to fade. I wait for a reaction, but there is no sign of his loss of patience. He smiles at me and strokes my hair as we watch TV. I wonder what is coming, but there is only more tenderness. It sets my nerves on edge and I can’t sleep.
He brings home a pregnancy test and waits outside the bathroom chewing on a fingernail. He smiles at the fact I hadn’t thought of this and as he patronises me I grit my teeth and read the instructions. When I come out and show him the definite blue line, he laughs like he did in the beginning and kisses me all over.
I relax slightly. Maybe things will be better when there are three of us. For the first time in a long time I feel the fizz of excitement. In fact, it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve felt anything at all.
I sleep with a hand on my belly and when we go to the doctor, we go together. All smiles.
*
Leopards don’t change their spots. Another cliché to fill my empty thinking space. I’m lying at the bottom of
the stairs, the pain not quite gripping me fully, too shocked to feel and I’m angry at myself for my stupidity, for not realising. For still wanting to believe in fairy-tale endings, when I know they don’t exist. For not getting my shit together and getting out of there.
Unmoving, I can see red spreading outwards through the fibres of our thick cream carpet and I feel the first wave of panic. I think that maybe I blacked out for a couple of seconds because somewhere behind me I can hear him calling an ambulance. My head is foggy. This can’t be good, I think, if he’s getting a doctor.
I try to move, but I can’t. When you’re seven months pregnant moving isn’t easy at the best of times, and when you’ve just been shoved down the stairs it’s another matter. Or tripped down the stairs, or walked into a cupboard, or whatever else he’s going to tell them so convincingly that he’ll end up believing it himself.
I almost laugh. I hate myself. I can see my heeled shoe on the floor beside me. It has come off as I’ve tumbled. The red is creeping towards it and it’s trying to tell me something but I don’t want to listen. Not yet. My chest hurts from where he slammed his knee into it only minutes ago. Something cracked in there. I’m sure of it.
I can hear him crying. I hate him almost as much as I hate me. His words are slurring into the phone. He’s drunk. That’ll be his excuse when he begs me to forgive him. He was drunk and I laughed a little too loudly at
something his partner had said over dinner and
why the hell was a pregnant woman wearing so much make-up anyway?
I look at the shoe and the blood and know there won’t be a next time. I’ll either die tonight or leave him and, from my place on the carpet, it feels like fifty-fifty. I don’t realise that dying is not as easy as people presume.