I Won't Forgive What You Did (22 page)

Finally, at around four, he turned up, just before the family were due. He was holding a clutch of Christmas cards and, without speaking to me, or acknowledging the time, went over to the sideboard and stood them up in a little row.

‘Who are all those from?’ I asked him, in all innocence.

‘Just girls I know,’ he said, his manner offhand, and tired. ‘Just regulars I pick up in my taxi.’

I picked up the first of the cards. Inside it said, ‘To darling Joe, with hugs and kisses and much, much more XXXXXXX’.

I felt anger and jealousy rise like bile. And indignation, too. How could he be so blatant – just putting those cards there, for all to see? I plucked them up, one by one, took them out into the garden, and put them into the dustbin. Joe stalked after me immediately, uncharacteristically furious, and for the first time ever I was wary of his anger.

He pulled them back out of the bin, then went around to the front, unlocked his car and shoved them inside. With perfect timing, two cars were now coming up the road. In the first I could see my father, with Grandpops beside him and doubtless my mother, Nan and Grandad in the back, and my little sister and brother on their laps. Behind them was my older sister’s husband’s car. We now had no choice but to pretend everything was normal, to greet them all and usher them in.

Joe slept in his armchair throughout almost their entire visit, which now seemed interminable. I was seething, frightened I might burst into tears at any moment, and was desperate for the family to leave.

I then had to go through the Christmas Eve rituals with the children, helping them to hang stockings on their beds, putting out a mince pie and strawberry milkshake for Father Christmas, not forgetting to add a carrot for Rudolph, and then finally putting them to bed, while Joe continued dozing in his chair.

I went back downstairs on heavy legs, almost unable to stomach the thought that in asking him what was going on, I might get an answer I couldn’t bear to hear. But I had to ask, and I got the answer.

‘I’ve met someone else,’ he told me quietly, ‘who I really love.’

It felt as if my whole world was coming to an end. ‘Who?’ I said. ‘Who have you met?’

‘A girl,’ he answered. ‘A girl I’ve been driving in my taxi.’ She was seventeen, he told me. And very pretty. She worked doing accounts at a firm in the next town, and he would regularly drop her at some disco. I didn’t want to know these things, but he told me anyway. I could feel dread engulf me now, suffocating me, a scream of pain and anguish in my throat.

‘I think I should leave,’ he said then. ‘I think it’s better. I’ll leave tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’ll leave tomorrow.’

In my head I
was
screaming now. Screaming
at
him. Saying: ‘Please, I
beg
you, don’t leave us. I’ll do whatever it takes. But,
please
, don’t go. Don’t leave us.’

But none of that came out. I couldn’t seem to form the words. Instead I just sat there and said, ‘But it’s Christmas tomorrow. What about the children? What will I tell Alfie and Jennifer?’

‘They’ll be okay,’ he said, as if I was making a fuss about nothing. As if him going wouldn’t really make a lot of difference. ‘They’ll be all right with you,’ he added. ‘And there’s your family.’

I was lost for words. How could
we ever
be all right now?

‘Joe,’ I asked him. ‘Do you still love me at all?’

He looked straight at me. But there was nothing in his eyes. Not even a glimmer. It was almost as if, inside, he had already left.

‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘Not any more.’

I went into Alfie’s bedroom first. Crept in, as quietly as I could, and left the red punchball, that was to be his big Christmas gift, carefully propped in the corner. Alfie had decided that he wanted to be a boxer when he grew up, and the punchball would enable him to get in some practice before he was big enough for proper classes. It should have been inflated, and its pole fixed onto its base, but Joe hadn’t felt like doing it. Looking at it now, I felt utterly defeated. I couldn’t work out how to put the thing together, and wished Joe could have bothered to do that one small thing. But he’d done nothing. Not even said goodnight to the children. Just said he was tired and gone to bed.

Next I quietly replaced Alfie’s empty stocking with a full one and put a few little presents at the foot of his bed. A book and crayons, some Lego, a few little cars. The wrapping paper crackled and I held my breath. He mustn’t wake, I thought, watching him. He mustn’t wake. I could feel a familiar hysteria welling up in my throat. How was I going to cope? What was I going to tell the children? What were we going to
do
?

Jennifer was sprawled unconscious in her bed, and I silently put down the little orange-striped doll’s buggy we’d got her. She’d love it, I knew. She would so enjoy pushing it around. I placed a little doll in it and tucked a blanket round her, then replaced Jennifer’s stocking with a full one, too, and again placed a few presents at the end of her bed; this time a handbag, a few books, a little hairbrush and mirror set.

I then went quietly back downstairs and looked around. At the Christmas tree lights, that hadn’t yet been switched off, at the garlands and decorations, at the bowls of nuts, the strewn Quality Street chocolates, and then I sank, ever so slowly, to my knees on the carpet. There, with my hands over my mouth and my forehead on the floor, I cried. I cried silently but non-stop.

It was almost Christmas Day morning before I climbed into bed, where Joe lay, fast asleep and untouchable. I couldn’t bear to get too close to him – it was simply too painful. Would this be the last time we slept in the same bed, ever? All I could think was that he no longer loved me and soon, come the morning, he’d be going.

I was scheduled to work on Christmas morning, and I was due there at eight and, having not slept, I felt like a zombie – my head spinning as I pretended excitement with the children, though I could hardly bear to look them in the eye.

Joe was uncommunicative, unwilling to talk, and neither of us spoke as he dropped me at work. The plan was for him to take the children to my sister’s for Christmas lunch and then collect me from work when my shift finished at two. We were then due for tea at my mother’s. How that plan might now have changed I had no idea. All I knew was that I couldn’t think straight.

Walking up the path to the old people’s home, as Joe and the children drove off, I realized I was actually grateful to be there. I would have wanted to work, in any case, as I’d have hated to let everyone down, but now I also thought how much better this was than being at home, waiting for him to leave. But once inside, the enormity of it all overwhelmed me, and I broke down, unable to stop sobbing.

The staff were lovely, and all so caring and sympathetic. Was I so sure? Maybe it was just a silly argument. Go home, they suggested. Sort things out. He wouldn’t
really
go. But I knew differently. I worked through the morning, trying hard not to cry, with the thought of two o’clock encroaching ever nearer.

When Joe arrived to pick me up, he was laughing. The children were too – their excitement hadn’t lessened – and they were anxious to show me their presents from my sister. Still nothing was said about what would happen. Maybe, I thought desperately, he’s changed his mind and is staying. How could he act this happy if he was just about to leave? But the bombshell was quick in coming. As soon as the children had finished telling me what they’d been up to, he said, ‘I’ll drop you at your mother’s and then I’ll go.’

Just those few words, spoken quietly while he was driving, that signified the end of my marriage.

I was speechless as we drove to my parents. He wouldn’t really just drop us and drive off, would he? He couldn’t do that, surely. Yet, he did. He pulled up and as he opened the driver’s door, said, ‘Here, let me get the kids out for you.’ He then lifted them both out, climbed back into the car, reversed it, and drove off.

I stood on the pavement, stunned, the children either side of me, unable to believe what had happened. We must have stood like that, the three of us, for several long seconds, and then Alfie said, ‘Mummy, where’s Daddy going?’

I took them in then. I had simply no idea.

I spent the remainder of Christmas Day in a fog of misery, feeling devastated beyond words. I sat on a stool in my mother’s kitchen, clutching the tumblerful of whisky that I’d been given on announcing what had happened. Nothing had been discussed since. Unable to take part in present opening, because I couldn’t stop crying, I remained sitting in the kitchen, occasionally hearing snippets of conversation. ‘Why is Mummy crying?’ I heard Jennifer ask. I didn’t hear my mother’s reply. ‘Why is she sitting in the kitchen?’ I heard my nan ask. But, as was the way with my family, no one talked to me about what had happened, let alone tried to comfort me, and Joe’s name wasn’t mentioned again.

I was dropped home by my brother at the beginning of Christmas evening and once I’d waved him off, trying desperately to keep myself together, I immediately put the children to bed. Neither of them asked where their father was, for which I was grateful. I didn’t think I had the strength to try to tell them. And even if I had, I couldn’t bear to. It was Christmas, for God’s sake. I couldn’t do that to them. I was relieved that they both got into bed without a fuss.

I glanced at Alfie’s new punchball as I tucked him in. It was still deflated and unassembled, just as it had been this morning. Joe hadn’t even bothered to do that for his little boy. I felt the scream in my throat poised, ready to burst from me.

Back downstairs again, I stood and surveyed the festive living room, which seemed to be mocking me; part of some ridiculous farce. The room was icy and empty, which made a thought suddenly occur to me. How on earth would I manage? I had a little Christmas food, but no money. Joe had gone with all of his and a check of my purse revealed I had just ten pounds in the world. How was I going to be able to pay for things? I only had my part-time job bringing in money, and how could I continue to do that with the children to look after on my own?

I was growing colder as I sat there, both inside and outside, but I didn’t put on the heating. I didn’t dare.

Where
was
Joe? Where had he gone? To his mother’s? It was Christmas Day, of all the days to choose, and I couldn’t bear to think he might be anywhere else.

When I woke on Boxing Day, after another night of fitful sleep, I simply couldn’t think what to do. I had no energy and no motivation to get up. The silence around me was deafening. I couldn’t bear the loneliness that was pressing down all around me, but if I got out of bed I was frightened it would engulf me. Eventually I heard sounds coming from the children’s bedrooms, where they both appeared to be playing with their toys. They seemed unusually quiet, however, and when, after a while, they both came in and climbed on the bed with me, Alfie, though Jennifer was chattering away quite happily, just sat there, looking at me.

He knew, I thought wretchedly. He
knew
what had happened. The tears started up again and I brushed them angrily away, as I took the children downstairs and made them breakfast. How could Joe do this to his own little children?

I decided not to tell them anything – not for the moment. Though, even then, I was aware that my not telling them was as much for my own sake as theirs. The imprint of my upbringing ran deep. Nothing painful could ever, or should ever, be discussed. Nothing bad, no matter how great the distress, was ever to be opened up for scrutiny. The death of my little brother, the abuse by my grandfather, the horrible things Daniel had repeatedly done to me, the betrayal by Phillip, the violence of my father – nothing, however dreadful, was to be questioned.

And so with this. In their turn, my two little children, for the moment, were now forced to play ‘let’s pretend’ as well.

As the days went by and there was still no word from Joe, I became increasingly distressed. I also became fixated on trying to track down this girl he ‘loved instead of’ me. I remembered he’d told me her name, which was Melanie, the type of firm she worked at, and the town it was in. I went through the Yellow Pages systematically, calling any company that advertised the same products and asking for Melanie by name. The last thing I wanted was for her to answer the phone herself, but if I could just find out where she was working, I might at least have some chance of tracking Joe down.

Once again, I’d had no luck with Joe’s mother. When I’d telephoned her, she’d just said she didn’t want to get involved. But if I could find this Melanie – who I still wasn’t completely sure existed – then perhaps I could also find Joe. Perhaps this was just another blip. Perhaps, like last time, he’d come home in the end. I also felt sure that if I could just speak to him, there might be some chance I could make him come to his senses quicker than if I left things to take their course.

It didn’t take many calls for me to find out where she worked – or, at least, someone called Melanie who seemed to be her. It had been a lady who’d answered and I now went through my routine, explaining I was a friend who was anxious to get hold of her, but who had mislaid her number. The woman sympathized and commented that, of
course
, I’d be wanting to congratulate her on her engagement, wouldn’t I? She immediately gave me her home telephone number and I wrote it down, both terrified and relieved. Hope sprang in me: if this girl was engaged, then she certainly wouldn’t be interested in pursuing things with Joe – if, indeed, she ever really had been. Perhaps he’d been barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps she’d now made it clear she wasn’t interested. Perhaps he’d come home after all.