One Split Second (38 page)

So, last night I had texted Pete to ask him to come in as early as possible because my mum would be in about one’ish and I couldn’t risk them ‘clashing’. Then, I decided I wasn’t happy about it and sent another text… DONT COME IN!! There was no way I was risking mum seeing Pete. The accident was enough for mum to deal with, without (and I don’t even like to write this), but without her meeting the man who was responsible for putting me in hospital once before!! To the family he wasn’t even Darth Vader (if they even knew who he was), oh no, to them he was the ‘devil incarnate’! Mmmh, maybe a slight exaggeration! then again… ?? . . . then, I received a text straight back from Pete saying that he would make sure that he was in by 11.30 and away by 12.30, and his reason was that he really wanted me to see the baby?? Ok, I said he had better not let me down… . was I mad? Yip!!

Well, I got myself ready as if it were a first date, after all, it was Li, I was out to impress. I had no idea what she was going to be like, and I even wondered if she would feel ‘threatened’ by me? In a very strange way, I did want her to know that I was the one that Pete wanted and couldn’t have, but for Christ sake, why? Why the hell do I care? I don’t know if it is a female thing, but I didn’t even want her to be pretty… what a bitch I am! In fact, I wasn’t sure what Pete had told her about me (or couldn’t remember). Anyway, I had been anxious all morning and was clock watching… he wasn’t there by 11.30 but at about 11.45, I could hear Pete’s footsteps, and the next thing, Pete strode into the ward, with an entourage; namely, Li, baby Tommy Li, one of his cousins Billy, a next door neighbors daughter, Mandy, (Christ, where was the neighbours seventh cousin, twice removed, albino, transvestite uncle?) . . . oh, surprise, there was no-one else, that was all!? Pete is such an exhibitionist. He had enough weird looking characters with him to stage his own friggin pantomime! He could have played the part of the Prince—NOT Prince Charming, oh no, he would re-enact The Prince of Darkness!!

Well, he may have had all those others with him, but when they all gathered around the bed, it was ME who felt on ‘display’ . . . I actually felt as if Pete was showing me off! It was very strange… he introduced me very proudly, as his ‘very special friend’, which suited me just fine as it wasn’t too outlandish and it was ‘believable’ even though it wasn’t true. I was quite surprised when I saw Li, because she was quite pretty, (bitch), she was wearing a nice fur coat and boots and looked very smart; she was medium height and slim. Although it was obvious she was Chinese, you could see Pete’s influence at trying to make her as ‘Westernised’ as possible! The baby was in a new baby carrier, and he was gorgeous, chubby, with red cheeks, loads of dark hair a lovely grin, and obvious ‘slanty’ eyes; to be honest, I didn’t really take any notice of the others, except to be polite and say hi. Then Li smiled at me rather awkwardly, and conveniently used Tommy Li as a, no doubt, welcome decoy. Pete proceeded to take Tommy Li out of his carrier and passed him to me. I must say, it was very strange and awkward trying to hold his baby in a hospital bed—in fact, I have only just mastered a knife and fork, and even that’s dodgy if I’m having a ‘weebles wobble but they DO fall down’ day—then, whilst holding his baby, Pete started taking pictures of me holding the baby, then with him in the picture, and then his brother… in fact, he took pictures of everyone in the picture with me and the baby, except I noticed that there were none with Li, which I found a bit insulting for her. It wouldn’t surprise me if Pete was going to try and ‘fob off’ pictures of me as the mother and even conjure up some elaborate story to explain the ‘obvious slanty eyes’!! You know, Pete does tend to live in his own little fantasy world; let me try and see if I can get this right, for my own sanity:-

Pete is supposed to have been married to Li in Berrytown, England, on 1st November 2003, where he ‘faked’ and totally ‘orchestrated’ the wedding and wedding ‘photos’. Then, Tommy Li was born on 21 November 2003 in Raighouse, Inverglen, where he had taken Li, so that the baby would be born in Scotland. He then tried to win his dads ‘approval and respect’, by parading his ‘fake’ wife, ‘fake’ wedding photos, and a ‘tampered’ wedding certificate with Li as his WIFE, in his dads face, and to ‘prove’ to his dad that he had been married before Li was born! (good old fashioned values set by his bullying, controlling father)! Hope, your keeping up, cause I’m getting confused!

Then, after both of them signing their names on ‘Tommy Li’s birth certificate he ‘metaphorically’, ‘stamped’ the ‘SOLD’ sign on the babys’ head. The ‘Masterplan’ is, that when Li’s papers arrive from China, Shanghai, he will really marry her so that after one year she can get the British visa, and then after another year they get a divorce. So, in the end, Li gets her VISA after one year and Pete gets to keep the BABY. My God, he’s made a bloody business transaction for a baby with the Chinese people, who approached him to ask if he could help get Li a Visa. Instead of taking money, he asked if he could get her pregnant and he would ‘KEEP’ the BABY!!

The whole bloody thing sounds absolutely warped, and sick, which it is, and I do not condone it, by any means, so, after seeing the three of them together today, I said to Pete that he may ‘grow’ to love her in time, and he looked right into my eyes and said ‘never’! I think Pete has got himself into one hell of a mess and maybe even ‘way out of his depth’. Trading a baby for a Visa, lying on Government documents, getting involved with the Chinese whilst illegally keeping all the lodgers under one roof which is far too many anyway and would totally go against the council house conditions to rent (or something like that?—I don’t think he’s allowed ANY lodgers by the rules. Christ, social services would have a field day, and the landlords and Immigration would ‘throw the book at him’! He is taking so many risks, he will be very lucky if his luck doesn’t run out soon. I think the one MASSIVE problem he is going to have is WHEN he gets married, and the authorities, doing their usual checks… smell a rat!, AND after seeing Li with the baby, I have absolutely NO DOUBT that she WILL NOT GIVE THE BABY UP! (Call it intuition). Good God, I’m a mother, and today I witnessed her with her baby and she whole-heartedly loves and dotes on her child! That’s where I think he is gonna find things start to go ‘pear-shaped’ . . . that Li and her Chinese ‘connections’, whoever they may be, could ‘break the agreement’ and refuse to give him the baby! But, it looks to me as if Pete has had the same thought as well, because he said he was talking to some guy called John, who can help get Tommy Li a whole new identity!! I think he may be thinking about ‘absconding’ himself with the baby before the year!! He is so scheming. God knows what the hell is gonna happen and God knows where I fit into his plans? Who knows, it wouldn’t surprise me if after the wedding, LI, herself, absconds with the baby!! After all, why should she care about a divorce once she is married? She has her VISA and her BABY! Maybe in her eyes, she was never intending to hand over her baby anyway! She looked smart and is probably intelligent—just because she only has pigeon English (or has she?), it may suit her to have someone translate her Chinese, when she can probably understand everything anyway. If I were Pete, I would be worrying about the word… TRIADS!! (that’s probably just my imagination working overtime thinking about all those Bruce Lee films I’ve seen—but isn’t Bruce Lee always the good guy?!). Pete seems to think he is infallible, and he really does believe that he can get away with this—his way. I swear ‘The McBains’ (his family) come from another breed or species that are conducive to one of his sci-fi planets!! I swear he lives on cloud cuckoo land, and believes that he can get a ‘bargain one day travel pass’ to the Moon by ‘teleporting’?’

Oh, I did come into his little plan after all. He said to me today that my disability changes nothing as far as he is concerned, and that he will look after me till the day he dies. Oh, my God, even writing this is draining me of all energy… He is bloody hard work, and the problem is, is that I think he thinks, that I believe he is some kind of superman, and that I have to believe him when he says my disability changes nothing and he is going to whisk me and Tommy Li away somewhere, where we can all be together and live happily ever after!! NUTTER!! In his absolute madness, I fear that the hero has forgotten that the disabled damsel already has two ‘real’ children that I really DO want to be with… . I daren’t even say anything, because the next thing I know, he will be putting them in another wing of the wonderful house on planet Mcbain, that he hasn’t built yet, but no doubt by the end of the saga it will be his `CASTLE` and he will become a character out of one of his fantasy worlds, known as `MCBAIN THE BOLD`—some kind of `super being`; actually, if this weren’t so serious, where there is a little baby involved, it would be a huge fuckin, farcical, sorry sick joke!! Although, at times it is soo whacky, I have found it funny!

Back in the real world, time was getting on, and after all the photos, and idle chat (crap, in other words), I had to remind Pete of the time, as it was rather quickly approaching 12.30, and he had to leave before mum came in. True to form, Pete decided that it wasn’t a problem, but they would have to change Tommy Li first and just give him a quick bottle before they left. I asked Pete how he was going to manage that in 5 minutes? The bugger made the excuse that he hadn’t realised the time, because we were all having such a good time! Oh God, give me friggin strength… I ‘politely’ asked him to come over as I had something to tell him, so he put his ear to my lips, and short of wanting to bite his ear off, to implement as much pain as possible, I `shouted, quietly with clenched teeth, that took on a smiley demeanor to Li, that WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? YOU KNOW MY MUMS GOING TO BE HERE ANYTIME!!! He hadn’t been expecting that and was slightly ‘taken aback’, but I kept smiling and, only then did he tell Li say that she could feed the baby in the car. I said to her that she could change the baby on Duncan’s bed before she went though. Pete was telling me not to worry, whilst he flippantly gathered up all their belongings. Oh God, I WAS worrying and just wanted him to leave. He dithered, got all his entourage to leave first and said he would meet them at the car, and I agitatedly said ‘goodbye’ (and don’t even think about coming back again), under my breath. By this time it was just leaving 12.45, and Li was just about finished. Then she bloody well dithered about, like oriental people do, little shifty steps, which l realised actually looked ridiculous with the fur coat. Anyway, she could have been wearing a geisha outfit as far as I was concerned, I really didn’t give a shit, I just wanted them OUT OF THE HOSPITAL!!

God give me strength… at this rate, he was even in danger of bumping into mum, and the problem was, mum would recognise him, because he had taken me to Fort George before. I started to realise, that Pete’s ego was getting the better of him, and he was so self-obsessed, I swear he definitely WANTED to bump into my mother, and no doubt explain that he was here for me and for her not to worry, because he was back in my life!!! Oh good God, he was MAD!! If I could have got out of my bed I swear I would have stabbed him with my pen… see what he does to me… . he brings out MY dark side after a while! They were all ready to leave and I hurried them along and nervously smiled and tried to look as pleased as I could… to see them of course… not because they were… leaving… OH, NO, but I gave one huge sigh, partly exhaustion and partly relief!! . . .

THEN, they hadn’t even got to the end of the ward, when I saw mum coming round the corner, with Crusty the taxi-driver… Oh FUCK! I saw them all stop, and I couldn’t hear anything. I just clammed up, and sunk into my bed, and hoped I would sink far enough through my bed into the pits of despair… . Well, after about two of the longest minutes of my life, I peeked over my pillow and saw mum walking towards my bed. She was actually smiling. Oh, God, she didn’t deserve that, bumping into him without any prior notice!! . . . I was angry. Pete had definitely planned it like that, and the shit had succeeded. Thankfully, mum didn’t seem too perturbed about what had just happened and when she got to the bed, and I tried to apologise, not knowing what to say… all she said was that she was ‘too old in the tooth’ to let a ‘toe rag’ like Pete, phase her, and that she had made it perfectly clear to him that I was a lucky girl to have such a large family that were all there to look after me, and I wouldn’t be hurt by ‘anything’ ever again, and ‘goodbye Pete, beautiful baby’, and what a lovely… wife?? (If only mum knew even the half of it, I think it would have curled her semi-perm for at least 6 months)!

My mum is amazing, I was so proud of the way she handled the situation, and, especially handled Pete. Never have I been so happy, to see the back of someone, and there and then I made the decision that I was NOT going to keep in touch with Pete, and he would know why, because he messed with my head again, making me anxious and angry, AND, with my mum, who was so composed, but it could have ended badly. As it happened, me and mum talked about Pete for a bit, and I just explained that he was married and settled down, and just came in to see how I was when his mum told him we had been in touch and what had happened to me!!

I told mum that I realised now how stupid it was that he had been in contact, BUT… and this did annoy me… . Mum never ONCE mentioned the ‘beating’—not that I really wanted her to, or me to talk to mum about it, but it did strike a chord of ‘nonchalance’ the way the family deal with issues they don’t like, in a ‘matter of fact’ way, they brush them under the carpet, just like, and I’m going to say it… the bloody rape, there, I’ve said it, and I’ve made it bold!!

Anyway, I’m not going to get upset over things that I can’t change, and I don’t want to re-live them, but my family and now mum, have never ‘acknowledged’ to me that they even really know! They talk about me having to overcome my denial about drinking not being a problem… then, is this not another form of denial but by, ‘the family’, in the way that they have preferred to believe that both the ‘Serious Bodily Harm’ verdict of the beating, and the ‘On-going’ rape enquiry, NEVER happened. Jesus, I’m not proud of what has happened, but it’s my life and it is was for REAL! . . . nothing further was mentioned, and… .