There were to be no more Thursday nights out with the lads, and he could play rugby at the weekend, but after a quick drink, I expected him back home, not to still be getting drunk four hours later.
He stayed in the spare room for a few nights, but if we were going to make it work, there was nothing to be gained from sleeping in separate beds. I didn’t feel ready to be close to him, emotionally or physically, but I felt like I was sitting on a ticking time bomb, wondering how many hours and minutes would pass before he felt he was justified in getting it somewhere else. I hated that he made me feel that way.
‘What do you want to do about the wedding?’ he asked one night, as we were having dinner. He’d just returned from Pammie’s. He and James were alternating taking her for her ‘second round of chemo’. I was surprised that she was still keeping up the charade, since Kate and James were married now. She’d failed in her attempt to stop them, so I wondered what the point was in her continuing to lie.
‘I don’t feel it’s something we should do anytime soon,’ I said. ‘But I would like to get Poppy christened though.’
He nodded in agreement. ‘How do you want to go about that?’
‘I was thinking just a simple ceremony in church, and then have some food and drink somewhere.’
‘I’d like to do that sooner rather than later,’ he said. ‘I want Mum there.’
I ignored the comment. ‘Well, I’ll look at it when I get time,’ I said.
‘I don’t think time is on our side,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘I don’t know how much longer she’s got.’
‘Oh, I’m sure she’s going to be fine,’ I said matter-of-factly.
He shook his head. ‘It’s really taking its toll this time round. They think it’s spreading. I don’t know if she’s strong enough to get through this—’ He choked on the last sentence.
I half-heartedly reached over and put my hand on his. I couldn’t offer him sympathy I didn’t have.
I looked at Poppy in her bouncer at my feet, her trusting eyes smiling up at me, and wondered how a mother could possibly put their child through this hell. How cruel would you have to be?
‘What will I do?’ Adam began to sob. ‘What will I do when she’s gone?’ His shoulders shook, and I begrudgingly got up and went to him. ‘She doesn’t deserve this. She’s been through enough.’
I kissed his head as I rocked him back and forth in my arms. ‘She’s a tough cookie,’ was all I could offer.
‘She makes out she is, but she’s not. Not really,’ he said. ‘She’s had to toughen up, because of what he did to her, but inside she’s just as frightened as she’s always been.’
I held him away from me so I could see his face.
‘What who did to her?’ I asked.
He shook his head, and went to lean into me again, but I held him firm. ‘What are you talking about?’
He wiped his nose with the back of a shaky hand.
‘Will you please tell me what you’re going on about?’ I said impatiently.
‘Jim,’ he sneered. ‘Or Dad, if we’re going to pretend he ever was one.’
‘What’s your dad got to do with anything?’
‘He was a bastard,’ he spat.
‘What? Why?’ My mouth was moving faster than my brain.
‘He destroyed her. He beat everything out of her.’
I felt like I’d been slapped round the face. I dropped onto the sofa.
‘What are you talking about? She loved him. He loved her. What are you saying?’
His head fell into his hands again.
‘What did he do?’ I pressed.
‘He would come home and beat the shit out of her, that’s what he’d do. Night after night, it was like watching a beautiful flower die a little bit more every time.’
‘She told you this?’ I asked, flabbergasted.
‘She didn’t need to,’ he said. ‘I saw it with my own eyes. We both did, James and I. He’d go to the pub after work, and she’d have his dinner ready on the table for when he came home. But almost every night, he’d tell her she’d done it wrong, throw it against the wall and slap her.’
I sat unmoving. ‘I’d see his hand moving through the air, as if in slow motion, before it hit her. She’d make this small yelping sound, but held anything more in, so as not to wake us, but we’d be sitting at the top of the stairs, watching everything through the banisters, praying for it to stop.’
‘Are you sure? I mean, are you sure you saw what you think you saw? You were young. Maybe it wasn’t what it looked like.’ I was scrabbling around for reason, when all around me was insanity.
‘I saw things no one should ever have to see, let alone children as young as us. We were too little to understand why our dad was hitting our mum and making her cry, but we knew it was wrong. We’d hatch secret plans for the three of us to run away to the seaside, back to Whitstable, where we’d been on holiday the summer before Dad died. He hadn’t come with us, we’d gone with Auntie Linda, Fraser and Ewan. Mum had seemed so happy there, away from him.’
‘How did he die?’ I asked gently.
Adam looked to the floor, as if lost in thought. ‘He had a heart attack late one night after he’d come home from the pub. He just collapsed in the kitchen and that was it. Mum let me and James have the next day off school, and put us in shirts and ties, whilst the house buzzed with police and funeral directors.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I remember how scratchy those shirts were, the collar irritating my neck. I remember worrying more about that than my dad being dead, and I thought there must be something wrong with me. I didn’t feel anything. I was just numb.’
‘Did he ever hit you?’ I asked.
‘No, he never touched James or me. He played the perfect dad and husband whenever we were around, but I knew. I knew what he’d do later. Mum knew too, she had a fear in her eyes, but she tried so hard not to let it show.’
‘Did you ever tell her what you’d seen?’
He shook his head. ‘It would break her to know that I knew. She’s gone to such great lengths to pretend that he was the best husband and the best dad. Even back then, all their friends thought he was the catch and she was the lucky one. But none of them really knew him. They didn’t know what he was like behind closed doors. How could they? She protected him then, and she still protects him now.’
I thought back to all the photos I’d seen of a couple so in love. Their friends seemingly jealous of what they had.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, going to him and cradling his head to my chest. ‘No child should ever have to see that.’
None of this made any sense. How could this be? I willed myself to find a way to exonerate Pammie from everything she’d done. Surely, there must be a reason in all this, an explanation as to why she was like she was, but as much as I tried, I couldn’t find it. The more I rolled it all over in my head, the more difficult it was to understand her actions. If she’d been treated so badly in the past, why would she set out to intentionally inflict harm on someone else?
45
By the time the christening came around, I’d worked myself up into a frenzy about seeing Pammie, James, and for some reason or other, Kate. In my mind’s eye, she’d gone from being an ally, the only person that could possibly relate to me, to Pammie’s partner in crime. It gave Pammie more power to goad me with, and I found the prospect of seeing them together intimidating.
I’d bought a new dress for the occasion, something to give me confidence, I’d reasoned to myself, to ease the guilt when handing my credit card over.
‘Blimey, that’s a bit bright, isn’t it?’ commented Adam. ‘I’ll need sunglasses.’
‘Too much?’ I asked, looking down at the canary-yellow chiffon. I felt good in it. The asymmetrical cut gave me my pre-baby shape back – no one needed to know I was bound up with Spanx underneath.
‘No, I like it,’ said Adam. ‘I’m just glad the daffodil season is over, as otherwise we’d have the devil’s own job to find you.’
He laughed as I hit him with my clutch bag.
Poppy was looking on from the middle of our bed, happily gurgling away as her parents bickered.