I Won't Forgive What You Did (31 page)

I was staggered to hear this, and wondered why she was telling me, but then she blurted out she still loved him and really didn’t know what to do. Did I love him too, she wanted to know? Because she was sure I couldn’t love him as much as she did.

I ended the call but when I challenged Warren about the declaration of love, he completely dismissed it. He apparently never said it, much less asked her to move in. But on the charge of his horrible, unprofessional behaviour his response was one that I should have heeded. He just laughed, dismissing her as if it had been all she’d deserved; she was, after all, so ‘pedestrian’.

He had a similar tone when speaking about his ex-wife, who he readily conceded he shouldn’t have married, as he ‘couldn’t stand either her or her values’. So irritating did he find her that he began an affair within weeks of their wedding, and said she annoyed him so much he mostly ignored her.

Indeed, he admitted he grew to hate her so much he’d planned to kill her by cutting the brake lines on her car. I recall at that point remembering how he liked to squeeze my throat during sex – would he soon start planning
my
demise?

But, as ever, I stored that thought into a box marked ‘Don’t be silly’ and carried on as if all was just fine.

There were plenty of distractions from thinking in any case, as Warren soon decided he didn’t like his job. He wanted to apply for something more suited to his skills, something in which he’d be top dog. It meant financial instability and another round of changes, not least of which was moving to a new house some way away, which needed serious renovation. Crucially, it also meant another move for Jennifer, one that would take her away from her friends, which she was very unhappy about. The only plus was as we weren’t going to sell our existing house Alfie could move in and save on rent.

It was about this time that I got a call at work from my young sister telling me that my nan had unexpectedly died. She’d had a fall at home and had died there a short time later. She was in her eighties, so it wasn’t completely out of the blue, but the circumstances were a little strange. She’d had a fall eighteen months before and hurt herself badly, and her GP – who was also a longstanding friend – had prescribed her pethidine for the pain. She was still taking it, in apparently increasing quantities, and it appeared she’d taken so much of the stuff that she’d become dizzy and fallen over. But it turned out she’d left a letter, detailing both her feelings in recent weeks, and her wish that the family ‘let her go now’, all of which made it sound like suicide.

After her funeral it turned out that she had been well prepared. As well as the note she’d left detailing how she wanted things at her funeral, she’d also labelled almost everything in her possession with the name of the family member for whom it was intended.

There was nothing whatsoever for either me or my children.

I felt glad she was dead. Glad and relieved I would no longer be made to feel bad and bewildered by the way she treated me. But also sad that, even in death, she wanted to punish both me and her great-grandchildren. I still don’t, and probably never will, know why.

Thank goodness, I recall thinking, as another link to my unhappy childhood was severed. Thank goodness I had a new life, and Warren.

Despite all the changes and my tempestuous relationship, in 1992 I divorced Gary and completed my social work course and so finally obtained my diplomas. I was so pleased that I couldn’t stop looking at the certificates. I couldn’t believe I’d managed such a thing.

I was all too aware I didn’t do it alone. Yes, I’d done it, but it never would have happened without Warren’s support. Even here, however, I was blinded by love, because in truth his help had always been grudging; he always seemed cross if I solicited his input and when he did read what I’d written he mostly told me it was nonsense, substituting my words for his own, longer ones. I couldn’t always understand what he’d written – nor his complicated language – and would have to rewrite it so it made sense to me again. But his input did help, and I remembered to feel grateful. Perhaps his dismissal of my skills had been what spurred me on. Certainly no one in my family bar, ironically, my mother, who was pleased, passed any comment, despite my being the only family member to have had any sort of higher education.

It was tragic that for all that education I was failing to be educated in other areas. Warren didn’t like the new job he’d so wanted and was becoming increasingly irritable. The silences, always frequent, had become an everyday torture, as well as his habit of, when he’d decided he was angry, physically removing himself from me, in order that I couldn’t beg him to talk.

This behaviour sent me into frenzies of anxiety, and I recall often being marooned on the other side of a locked door, shouting every obscenity my father had ever taught me just to get a response. I wouldn’t, and the inevitable outcome would be that I’d fall to my knees, mentally and physically exhausted, unable to stop the big choking sobs. I went to work in a complete daze, couldn’t settle, couldn’t focus; all my energies were channelled into one thing – wondering when next I would displease him.

It got so bad I became hyper-vigilant. I would wait anxiously for him to return home and see what sort of mood he’d be in. It got so acute that I could tell, just from the way the key turned in the lock, how hard he shut the door, how and if he said ‘hello’.

At this point, three years into our relationship, physical violence was just confined to ‘sex games’. But one day I had the most chilling exhibition of what, if I stayed, was to come. He was ironing in the kitchen during one of his long silences and I, as usual, was trying to talk him round. He grew angrier and angrier, but I clearly hadn’t noticed how much, because entirely without warning he suddenly threw the hot iron at my head, so hard the plug was wrenched from the socket. It missed me by so little I thought at first that it had hit me, so hot was the blast of heat that came off it against my cheek. But it missed and hit the wall behind me leaving a big indentation in the plaster. My hand flew to my face, which was just as well really, because seconds later he threw the ironing board at me too, which, unlike the iron, did meet its mark.

I was utterly in shock, the ironing board clutched to my chest, as he stomped out and slammed the door, hard.

He returned two miserable, soul-searching hours later. What had I done to provoke such terrifying fury? How could he do something so dangerous? By now I’d packed some clothes and transferred them to my car, and was just about to leave when he walked back into the house, with not a single word spoken. He completely ignored me.

I drove off, stunned that he hadn’t acknowledged anything, and stayed overnight at my sister’s. I didn’t tell her what had happened – she didn’t seem to either care or want to know – I just told her we’d had an argument, which, oddly, seemed to please her. I went to work the next morning with my heart in my mouth, and spent the whole day trying to hide the fact that I was crying. Thank goodness, I remember thinking, Jennifer had been away on a two-day college course. There was still no contact from Warren, and I drove home again feeling awful, terrified about what might happen next.

He eventually came in, his only comment being ‘Oh, so you’ve decided to come home then?’ and I nervously suggested we talk. To my shock, he agreed. It was my fault, he told me, because I deliberately wound him up, and when he was wound up he just saw red – he couldn’t
help
it –
everything
became red. He admitted that he shouldn’t have thrown the iron at me, but said he had deliberately aimed it to miss me – he was a good shot, he added, so if he
had
wanted to hit me, he most definitely could have. I asked him why he’d want to frighten me like that – and how could he be so sure it actually
would
have missed me? His answer was clear. He never had
any
doubt it wouldn’t hit me.

At no point did he apologize. It was as if the word ‘sorry’ simply wasn’t in his vocabulary. And I – and I can barely believe this now I write it – accepted that, yes, it was as much my fault as his and I must try and modify my behaviour. Yes, I did feel the first stirrings of resentment, but leaving him simply wasn’t an option. I still felt that I was lucky to have him at all. After all, when he was lovely, he was very, very lovely and like an addict I could never have enough of him.

There were to be two further warnings of what a risky road I was walking, and the first of them, again, was about sex. Despite my conversation with him about his violence in the bedroom Warren continued to be rough. I hated it – I felt frozen; felt just as I’d done with Pops and Daniel, as if sexual attention was an ordeal to be endured. It probably didn’t help that he was drinking a great deal and had also resigned from his job. He was spending more and more time drunk and lying on the sofa, often waking and storming out soon after I came home, driving his car while way over the limit.

Sex seemed one more expression of his anger, and he’d use intercourse as a way of physically demonstrating his power and control. He’d have sex with such force it took my breath away, literally, but I, so well used to being an empty vessel for men’s gratification, now did what I did best, simply got on with it. I had completely given up trying to reason with him.

However, my body had other ideas, and I began developing symptoms in my bladder. Increasingly I couldn’t empty it, and became worried about my symptoms – I was also beginning to have trouble with my bowels, increasing my anxiety even more.

When I found one day I couldn’t pass urine, I finally told him about my problems. He was predictably dismissive, aggressive and defensive, so in agony with my stomach blown up like a balloon I drove myself to the local hospital.

Here they examined me and inserted a catheter, and my relief at this vast volume of urine coming out – jug after jug of it – meant I actually found myself laughing along with the nurse, almost as if this horror was happening to someone else. Naturally I did not tell them how I’d got into such a state.

But the truth was, I
was
in a state and they couldn’t understand what was going on. With every key question, particularly about difficulties with sex, I gave my stock answer ‘No’. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them the truth for fear of repercussions and denial about Warren, and also because it was what I’d spent my whole life doing – protecting the perpetrator. Blaming myself. They decided they’d need to perform a keyhole procedure, and I would need to remain in hospital.

I saw Warren once during that time. He arrived, then remarked that he hated hospitals and left. He didn’t want anything to do with it. I wasn’t the only one in denial. Eventually I was sent home with a catheter and a leg bag and, over the next few weeks, my body repaired itself. He didn’t want anything to do with me while I was attached to my catheter, and, important though it was to the process of healing, not being able to have sex with him troubled me. Much as sex with Warren made me feel under stress, and was often so painful, I hated us
not
doing it even more, because sex was the only way I knew to be close to someone – my childhood abuse had taught me sex meant someone loved you and cared about you, and I thought I had nothing else to offer.

Ironically, at around that time I saw Daniel for the first time in years. Warren and I were attending a family party being held in the school hall where my sister worked. I watched him arrive and make a beeline for the two of us, his eyes never leaving my face. So focused on me was he that he even tripped and stumbled, sending the little infant-school chairs and tables flying.

He gushed over me, kissing me and cupping my face in his hands, and sending me straight back to the sense of complete powerlessness that he used to invoke every time he came near me.

‘I don’t know what you’re doing to her,’ he said to Warren as he released me. ‘But it’s certainly working. She looks wonderful.
Wonderful.
’

I wasn’t sure which of them was worse to behold. The abuser who’d stolen my innocence and trust, or the one I was currently in thrall to, and who was apparently ‘doing’ something so right. Remembering these feelings today feels so tragic, but I was actually glad when the catheter was removed and Warren and I could be physically intimate again. However, just two weeks after resuming sex, I was back with the same problem: doubled over with a hugely distended bladder and driving myself to hospital again.

I was fitted with a longer-term catheter which was inserted, very painfully, through my stomach, watched by a group of junior doctors, and held in place via stitches in my stomach. This time I didn’t even tell Warren I was in hospital so naturally he didn’t come to visit me, and when Alfie and Jennifer did, looking concerned, I told them absolutely nothing about it.

It would be years before I told Warren the cause of all my problems, and his response then was not ‘I’m sorry I hurt you’ but ‘You should have said if it was hurting. How was
I
to know?’ As if he really, really couldn’t tell.

I became expert at explaining things away. I was working fulltime as a social worker by now, travelling a great deal and responsible for a large team. I was not in a good place at work. The title of being the boss’s ‘other woman’ had stuck fast and it was generally believed among some of my staff that I had been promoted ahead of other people who should have been considered before me. Once again, I knew I had brought all this on myself, and instead of holding my head high and proving my value, I found myself feeling I must apologize for my existence. It was almost as if, subconsciously, I’d managed to recreate my place in the family as a child – the person designated for ignoring or blaming, the one it was okay to dismiss.