Somewhere Only We Know ....... (19 page)

The
pregnancy wasn
’
t all smooth.
I used to have horrific nightmares. Everyone was different but I
would wake up terrified and would be too scared to go back to
sleep. When I became dark eyes with the lack of sleep my mam and
Granny took turns to come over and sleep at my house. It was lovely
to have them there. I had always been close to my Granny but my mam
and me were also laying some foundations down. It had taken me
until I was almost 30, but I finally started to get Margaret, what
she had sacrificed to have me and even why
hers
’
and my
dad
’
s marriage survived when
on paper it should have been a write off years ago.

So by the
time James arrived we were all in a good place. We were discharged
from hospital within 12 hours and both my mam and my Granny
insisted in staying with me until I was back on my feet. I was so
grateful, James turned out to be a good baby, but with 3 under 4 I
had my work cut out.

When James
was 3 days old I rang the number Keith had given me. A woman
answered. I asked if it would be possible to speak to him and she
asked who was calling. I wasn
’
t sure what to say so I just said
“
it
’
s Mrs Evans.
”
When
he came to the phone I told him he had another son,

James. All
he said was
“
thank you for
letting me know
”
. And that
was that.

And that was
that as far as Keith was concerned. He
didn
’
t see his children or
support them. But at the end of the day it was his loss. I had
three amazing children. We were a family, the four of us, my family
and my close friends.

Money was tight but we managed. My mam and
dad helped out all of the time. There always seemed to be something
one of the kids had grown out of, or something broke. But all in
all we were happy.

One by one
the kids went off to school and some of the financial burden was
released. When James went to school, I returned to work full time
and used my child-minder to help with before and after school care
as well as the millions of holidays they seemed to have.

I enjoyed
work still and when I was feeling more like my old self I started
having the odd night out with work colleagues, sometimes Karen and
sometimes both. I wasn
’
t
looking for a new man in my life, but I did enjoy time when I
wasn
’
t just
mammy.

My Granny
died when she was 88. She hadn
’
t been well for a couple of years and it was terrible to
watch her deteriorate. She had been my greatest friend and the hole
she left in my life would always be irreplaceable. I was
inconsolable when she passed and it took me a long time to accept
that she had even gone, without collapsing in a heap on the floor.
I loved her so much.

My mam and me grew closer. We supported each
other through our mutual grief and helped the kids understand that
their Granny Hannah had gone to Heaven.

Time is a great healer though and we
eventually settled into a life without my Granny. Out of sight but
never out of my mind.

The tables
turned and it was my turn to be the comforter when Karen and Dave
separated. It turned out that he had been seeing a woman he met at
the cycling club. Karen was devastated, she
hadn
’
t detected any cracks
in her marriage, so his departure was a total shock. Of course she
blamed herself. She said she didn
’
t blame him for running off (or cycling) with a fit bird.
Since Charlotte
’
s birth she
hadn
’
t really shook off the
baby weight, her trade mark blonde hair had grown out and was now a
dull brown and she was rarely seen out of leggings. He had told her
he loved her however she was, obviously he
hadn
’
t.

Dave told
her she could stay in the house and he would pay the mortgage, but
with no income to pay the rest of the bills, Karen was panic
stricken. Together we made numerous phone calls to benefit agencies
and her solicitor to see what she was entitled to. It
wasn
’
t as bad as she had
thought and if she got herself a little part-time job then she
would be better off still. So it
wasn
’
t all doom and gloom
for her.

As the weeks
wore on, Karen adjusted to life as a single mam. She was still
furious with Dave and had attacked him on a number of occasions
when he came to her house to pick up Charlotte. The time he turned
up with his girlfriend in the car to drop Charlotte off he was
treat to a bust lip and had to go scurrying back to the car red
faced and bleeding. But like everything else, time
healed.

Karen got a job as a waitress in a local
pub. The hours suited her with Charlotte and she enjoyed the
company. Slowly old Karen emerged. With all of the running to the
pub from the pub and around the pub, the weight dropped off her.
The blonde hair was back and she settled into life as a single
parent.

The years
ticked by. We had good times and bad just like every other family.
My mam and dad were always supportive and had good relationships
with each of their grandchildren, it was hard to believe that they
were the same people who made such a hash at my upbringing. I was
mam and dad, just as likely to be running up and down the touchline
at one of the lad
’
s football
matches as traipsing around the Metrocentre with Beth looking at
the latest fashions.

I had a few
relationships, but I didn
’
t
particularly trust anyone so I was guarded and made excuses about
the kids coming first before the relationship went too far. But for
the next few years there was no one. Then one day there was Ben and
my life would never be the same again.

The house
was always full of teenagers. Every weekend there would be a
different combination of lads and lasses staying over. Our house
seemed to be a refuge for any of the
kid
’
s friends. But it was
nice, I fed them and listened to them all having fun. It was all
very different to my school days.

Thomas was
almost 16. He was tall handsome, well I thought he was but then
I
’
m biased. He had always
been sporty and dedicated to whatever sport he was doing, football
through the winter, cricket in the summer. His dedication went out
of the window when he discovered girls. Suddenly he was all hair
gel and aftershave. His mobile phone bleeped constantly and the PC
we had in the corner of the living room became the most important
thing in the whole house. And that was all 3 of them, not just
Thomas. He had lots of friends and seemed to be popular with both
sexes.

Beth
’
s friends
especially liked him. They would follow him around the house and he
would tease them by practicing his chat-up lines on them causing
them to giggle and blush. I would laugh to myself, give those girls
a couple of years and they would have Thomas eating out the palm of
their hands. Poor Beth. She had just turned 15 and was still pretty
as a picture. She had inherited one of my old traits, crushes; and
I would look on in despair as she would fall in love with one of
Thomas
’
s friends after
another. Even when she got her first boyfriend, Liam, she still
swooned over Thomas
’
s
friends, they all appeared to be so much more mature than Liam even
though there was only a couple of years between the lot of
them.

James was
the pest. He liked nothing better than winding up his brother and
sister, their friends and me if the mood took him. He was 13 and
was a smaller version of Thomas, without the insight of girls and
lager. He always had a couple of mates on tow and they spent hours
and hours in his bedroom playing computer games, only surfacing
when they needed feeding and watering. I never thought about how he
was conceived, it didn
’
t
matter. The gypsy was right, he was my gift, he was all of our gift
and I couldn
’
t imagine life
without him.

I never saw the gypsy again even though I
had often looked for her. When the annual town moor was on in
Newcastle, where all the gypsies plied there trade, I would go
along and scour the shiny caravans in the hope of seeing her. But I
never did, I just wanted to say thank you.

Ben was one
of Thomas
’
s school friends.
Thomas had been friends with him when they had first when to the
comprehensive but their friendship and dwindled and I
hadn
’
t seen him for 3 or 4
years. I arrived in from work one teatime laden down with shopping
bags full of the weekly food shop I had done on my way back from
work. After making a couple of trips to the car, I eventually
dumped all the bags in the kitchen, popped the kettle on and then
went to see who was in for tea.

Thomas was
sitting on the PC in the living room. With him was a tall dark
haired lad I didn
’
t
immediately recognise. It wasn
’
t until I had spoken to Thomas and asked him if he was ok
did the lad turn around. My stomach did an involuntary somersault
and I shivered all over. Ben Jacobs. It was a very grown up Ben
Jacobs.

I quickly
recovered and said
“
I hardly
recognised you Ben, long time no
see
”
.
“
Are you staying for
tea?
”
I
didn
’
t wait for his answer,
just walked out of the living room and shouted for Bethany and
James. In the kitchen I made myself a cup of coffee and while I
waited for it to cool I unpacked the shopping. I had emptied almost
half the bags when Ben walked in. Immediately all the hairs on the
back of my neck stood to attention.
“
What the hell
”
I thought to myself.
“
Well then Ben, what have you been
up to?
”
He pulled himself up
on to the kitchen bench and told me how his family had moved onto
the new estate that was just being built on the edge of the
village. He said him and Thomas had stayed friends all the way
through school but it was only since he moved to Kinsley that they
had started to hang around with each other out of school. He went
on to say that his mam had had identical twin girls three months
earlier, that
’
s why they had
moved to a bigger house.

As I
continued to put the shopping away Ben started to whistle
‘
Sweet
Caroline
’
. I looked up at
him and smiled.
“
You are far
too young to know that song
”
I laughed.
“
It
’
s my mam, she
loves all that stuff and whenever she plays it, it always reminds
me of you!
”
I stared at him
in astonishment, his eyes locked with mine and once again I
shivered.

“
If we are
going to ever get tea you best move yourself off my
bench
”
I said. He jumped
down and made his way back into the living room. I made tea in a
bit of a daze. I couldn
’
t
have eaten a bite, but I plated up everyone
else
’
s and as they sat
around the dining table I made my escape into the bath.

Over the next few weeks Ben became a regular
visitor to our house. I felt totally unhinged when he was about and
spent sleepless night tossing in turning in my bed wondering what
the hell was happening to me. Thomas had always had friends at
ours, they all flirted and joked with me, but they were kids and to
be honest I never really noticed them.

Ben was a
kid, he hadn
’
t even turned
16. But he was different. He didn
’
t look at me like he was a 15 year old, he looked at me
like he was a man. He didn
’
t
talk to me like a 15 year old, he spoke to me on an equal level,
and he certainly didn
’
t look
like a 15 year old, though he

didn
’
t look like a
man, he didn
’
t have the
awkward gangly way young lads have. But at the end of the day he
was still a 15 year old and I was on dangerous ground.

My mam and
dad had got the kids a rescue dog earlier in the year, when the
novelty wore off it was me who had the twice daily walks to do. I
didn
’
t mind it was exercise
and I liked the time I had alone, Jasper was a good dog so I
enjoyed our walks. When Ben suggested he came on one of my walks, I
should have nipped it in the bud there. I
didn
’
t. He was really good
company and knew something about everything. Soon the dog walking
became a regular occurrence, if my kids thought it was strange they
didn
’
t say anything, I
suppose they were happy I wasn
’
t dragging one of them out. We walked around the woods at
the back of my house. Always a creature of habit, Ben laughed when
the realisation hit him that I took the same route every time and
when I got to a tree which had fallen down years earlier and whose
roots were embedded across the path we walked on, which I always
touched with my foot before turning around and heading for home.
Ben started to say it was our tree and once again I
shivered.