Somewhere Only We Know ....... Read online

  I started to lose weight. Whenever I ate something I threw it back up and I felt awful all of the time. I booked an appointment at the doctors and when they asked if I was worried about anything I said that everything was fine. The doctor thought I might have depression and ordered some tests to eliminate any underlying cause, before I was prescribed anything. When they called me back for the results, the reason behind it all was shocking, I was pregnant again.

  Keith and me had never really thought about starting a family, I had gone on to the pill shortly after we got together and though it was always going to happen at some point, it seemed a thing we would do sometime in the future. I was only 23 and Keith was 21 and to be honest Keith was already the baby in the relationship and if we were ever going to be parents I would have to wait for him to grow up. But here I was, pregnant again, married to a man I didn’t completely trust and I was terrified. I had still continued to have periods so the doctor recommended an early scan to determine dates and the wheels were set in motion for midwife appointments, excitement bubbled inside of me, but as quick as it did a wave of guilt washed over me. How could I dare be excited and want this baby when I have murdered my other baby all those years ago, I didn’t deserve to be happy.

  I had never told Keith about the abortion. To be honest when we first got together I think he thought I was just short of being a virgin. I was so afraid of the whole sex thing, shy and timid. I didn’t think to tell him anything different. So now how would I be able to tell him what I had done? I didn’t have to, I thought. So I didn’t.

  When he got in from work that night, for once sober, I sat him down and told him the news. He was over the moon. He was like a child at Christmas. This is going to be all right I thought to myself. This will settle him down and make a man of him.

  And it did, in some ways. He fussed around me making sure that I always rested and ate properly and he helped around the house. But when it came to scans and things he let me down. He would always say he would meet me at the doctors or at the hospital but he would never show up. I did it all on my own. He always apologised afterwards saying he was stuck here or caught up there, but it kept happening.

  The rest of the family were great, me and my mam and Granny went out shopping for baby things and as I got bigger the nights when Keith was away I would go and stay with one of them.

  Keith still got drunk, but I told him from the start that sex was off limits and he seemed to accept that. On his sober nights he wouldn’t bother me, but I would often be woken up with him wanking himself off beside me.

  I didn’t enjoy the pregnancy. It was frightening. All the way through I thought that the baby would die, or that when it was born it would have some kind of deformity. Why did I deserve to have a beautiful healthy baby? I was a bad person.

  My due date came and went. Everyone was on red alert. I did all the old wives tricks to get me going but nothing happened.

  Eventually I was admitted into hospital to be started off. 72 hours later, battered and bruised from his ordeal, Thomas was born and he was the most perfect thing I had ever seen. I thanked God over and over and over again. How did I deserve this?

  We returned home and the house was full of flowers and cards and gifts. My mam and Granny were on hand to help and family, friends and colleagues from work all called to have a look at my lovely Thomas.

  Keith was a doting dad, well he was when he had an audience. When there was just the three of us he mostly ignored Thomas. He didn’t change him or bath him in fact he didn’t really touch him.

  Because of Keith’s neglect of Thomas I lavished even more affection him. He was a good baby, he ate and slept well. My mam and dad doted on him and he gave my Granny a new lease of life.

  When my maternity leave ended I could only have Thomas looked after 3 days a week by the child-minder, my Granny offered to have him the other two. She was amazing, she was almost 80 years old and she coped with Thomas like a woman half her age would.

  Going back to work was hard, but needs must and after the initial parting every morning I settled back into routine. Thomas was well cared for and loved and I wasn’t far away if I was needed.

  Things didn’t improve with Keith. If I didn’t know better I would have thought that he was jealous of Thomas. He spent nights away from home, he schemed and he drank. With Thomas’s arrival I looked at Keith with new eyes. He was still gorgeous and he was charming and he seemed to work hard for us, but he was also childish and irresponsible, he let us down constantly. He fritted away his wages away and any money he gave me towards bills would be withdrawn over the course of the month from our joint account. I still had sole responsibility for keeping a roof over our heads and feeding us all.

  While I had been attending anti-natal classes at the doctors, I had struck up a really good friendship with Scarlett. Her baby was due within days of Thomas and as it turned out her baby, Charlotte was born 2 weeks earlier than mine. We stayed friends after the babies were born and often called around to each other’s houses for a coffee and a catch up.

  Scarlett was a couple of years younger than me and we had attended the same school, like me she was born and bred in Kinsley and had lots of relatives in the village. She had married a local lad and lived a couple of streets away from ours. From the beginning we bonded, it was nice having a friend again, obviously I was guarded about my home life with Keith but it was great for the day to day stuff and baby talk.

  Scarlett wasn’t actually Scarlett when I met her. She was plain old Karen Brown. Years later when her marriage broke up and she decided that she would get back into dating again she changed it to Scarlett, thinking it made her sound more sophisticated. I howled with laughter when she told me and told her she sounded more like one of my Nice and Easy hair dyes. But she was adamant and eventually Scarlett stuck.

  It was Karen’s idea that we have a night out. It was a good idea, neither of us had been out since the birth of our babies. We weren’t doing anything too exciting, we were just going to go to a pub in the village and have some food a couple of drinks.

  Keith was going to look after Thomas, he wasn’t happy, but I assured him I would only be a few hours. When I was getting ready to go out, Keith came into the bedroom and insisted on having sex. It was like he wanted to put his scent on me to deter any men coming near me. As I went to wash in the bathroom he blocked the way and said I couldn’t clean up. If I wanted to go out, I would go out as I was. This became a regular occurrence, if I was going out without him, then I went with his come between my legs. It eventually got to the point that I was turning down invitations for nights out, it just wasn’t worth it.

  When Thomas was about 3 months old, Keith came in from work really drunk one night. I was upstairs bathing Thomas when I heard him come crashing in. I heard him shouting for me and I rushed to rinse the shampoo off Thomas’s hair. I wasn’t quick enough and Keith came staggering into the bathroom. He was furious that I had ignored him and before I knew it he smashed his fist into the mirror above the bath. Natural instinct made me grab Thomas and crouch over and protect him. I felt slithers of glass fly around me and small stings in my head and shoulders.

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion, but it was only seconds. I heard Keith stagger out of the bathroom behind me and I took my chance to run down the stairs with Thomas into the living room.

  Laying Thomas onto the settee I saw that he had blood on him, through my tears I rubbed my hands all over his body, Thomas was giggling thinking I was tickling him. There were no cuts or glass on him. It was my blood.

  I dressed Thomas and lay him in his pram. Walking to the mirror I could see that there was blood running down my face. Slowly I ran my fingers through my hair, tiny shards of glass were embedded into my scalp. Thomas was sleeping, so I crept up the stairs. Our bedroom door was open and as I peeped through I could see Keith lying on the bed, he was flat out. On the front of his trousers was a dark patch, he had only been there a matter of minutes and already he had pissed
himself.

  I cleaned myself up, then the bathroom. I should have just left it for Keith to sort, but there was glass everywhere. There were a couple of cuts on my shoulder and lots of small ones in my head, but there was no evidence of what had happened.

  As I sat and cuddled Thomas, I rocked back and forwards. What would I do? Keith could really have hurt Thomas. In his drunken stupor he had no thought for his son’s safety. I should have walked out of the door then. But I didn’t. I stayed. I didn’t want Thomas to be part of a broken home. Things would get better, I was sure they would. Once Keith realised what had happened he would get better. I should have gone, because they got worse.

  The Most Beautiful Girl in The World

  When I confronted Keith the next morning, he accused me of lying. I showed him my cuts but he was having none of it. You did them to yourself he said. Yes right Keith, because that what I do, I deliberately hurt myself and blame you. My heart hardened a little bit.

  The following months were a nightmare, but to the world outside the house I smiled. No one had a clue what was going on. Maybe Karen did, she often asked if I was ok? But of course I lied and said things couldn’t be better.

  Keith’s drinking got worse and now along with the drinking came the pushing and shoving and slapping and kicking. But no matter how drunk he was he never marked my face. My body was covered in bruises. As quickly as a bruise faded a new one took its place.

  Our sex life deteriorated. I couldn’t stand him touching me. But of course my no was never really a no, it just meant that he could do what he wanted when I was asleep. When Thomas was 6 months old, I discovered I was pregnant again.

  Keith lost interest in me completely. He spent more and more nights away from home. My mam and dad commented on how hard he was working, little did they know. It wasn’t work that was keeping him away from our home, more a workmate in the shape of Anita. He didn’t really try and keep it from me. He would come home with love bites on his neck and reeking of perfume. I wasn’t interested, if she was keeping him away from me then that was great, she was welcome to him.

  The nights he was home he slept on the settee. We had invested into a lovely leather one just before Thomas was born, but every morning it would need soaping down. Where I felt pity for Keith and his problem, now it disgusted me. As if I didn’t have enough to do with a baby and a full time job without washing settees down and washing blankets or sleeping bags, along with whatever else he was wearing.

  I did all my hospital appointments on my own again, I was once again tormented with thoughts of deformities and dead babies. When I went past my due date, I went alone into hospital to have my baby. Keith knew what was happening and said to ring when I went into labour. My mam and dad had Thomas and when the pains started they tried to get in touch with Keith, but he was nowhere to be found.

  So when Bethany was born, there was only me to coo over her. She was beautiful. She looked so much like Thomas but her hair was much darker and when she opened her eyes, they were huge and the bluest blue. I was so proud of her.

  Keith eventually turned up at the hospital when Bethany was about 12 hours old. We were about to be discharged and he turned up just in the nick of time. He took one look at Bethany and said, “well she isn’t mine is she?” I looked at him in shock. What the hell.

  We went home, my mam, dad and Granny were waiting with Thomas and I once again sent up a silent prayer to God for my family. My mam stayed with me for a few days. Keith did a faultless performance of a doting father, but once my mam went and we were alone, he reverted to his old self and ignored all three of us.

  I wasn’t going to go back to work this time. There was no way I could afford to have 2 children with a child-minder and it would be far too much for my Granny. Thomas was getting to be a handful and I wanted my Granny to enjoy her Great Grandchildren not think of them as a chore.

  I knew money would be tight, but if I saved as much as I could while I was still getting a salary; I was sure we would survive. It was when I visited the bank to open a saving account for Bethany that I discovered that all the savings we had had gone. Thomas’s little savings account had been cleaned out and the savings I had set aside for a rainy day were cleared out too. Keith had taken the lot.

  In the middle of Lloyds TSB I went into melt down. One of the cashier’s came around and took me and the kids into a little room and supplied me with a tissue and a strong cup of coffee. I couldn’t believe that Keith would stoop so low as to take Thomas’s money.

  Worse was to come, the mortgage on the house was in arrears. I had taken my eye off the ball and look what he had done.

  I was going to have to go back to work. All my hopes at being a stay at home mam were out of the window. I was going to have to pay child-minding fees but even the measly amount of wages I would have left at the end of the month would be better than nothing. My heart hardened some more.

  So back to work I went. The child-minder who had looked after Thomas before Bethany was born was looking after both children full time. She was great and I had no worries about them when I was at work.

  Keith was no help. I got the kids up in the morning and ready for the child-minder’s. It was me who dropped them off and me that picked them up after a day’s work. It was me who made tea and cleaned the house and put meals on the table and paid the mortgage and the rest of the bills; Keith was a waste of space.

  Still I said nothing to no one. I lived in my little house with my two beautiful kids and to all intense and purposes looked to be living an idyllic life.

  But it was a living nightmare. The drinking and the beatings and the night time assaults continued. I was a nervous wreck. Keith now had a new thing too, he was controlling me; little by little he began to control every aspect of my life.

  He would check the mileage on my car, he would check my knickers for any sign of extra marital activity, I couldn’t go anywhere without asking if I could go first. He even stopped me from doing the weekly food shop on my own. It didn’t matter how much time I would have on a weekend to do it, I would have to wait until he was free so he could come with me. My friends were made to feel very unwelcome and he even managed to fall out big time with my mam and dad. So no one came to visit, apart from my Granny coming for tea once a week no one came to our house. Even Karen, who I suspected had an idea what was going on stayed away. She telephoned all the time, but when Keith realised that I was talking a lot to Karen he started to take the telephones out of the house with him when he left.

  Keith and I always had good nights out together, he always used to be so proud of me before we had the kids. But it all changed, he used to accuse me of looking at other men, I wasn’t. At least I didn’t think I was! But I became so nervous I would spend the whole night looking at the floor, woe and betide me if he caught me looking anywhere else but at him. In the end I stopped going, what was the point.

  When I was at home I was totally isolated with the kids. I dreaded either of the kids taking poorly, I don’t know what I would have done. I would have had to go to a neighbours and then the cat would be out of the bag. But still I didn’t leave.

  Keith still ignored both kids, my heart would break when Thomas would crawl or toddle over to his daddy, only to be picked up and put in his play pen or at some other part of the room by Keith. He didn’t even look at Bethany.

  The only bit of freedom I had was when I was at work. Here I was in control, organised. I didn’t show how unhappy my home life was, I left that all behind the minute I stepped through the office doors. I always dressed carefully, never showed any bruising. I didn’t bother socialising with my workmates, it was pointless and the price I paid for a night out was far too high.

  When Michael joined the company shortly after I returned to work, an old trait of mine came back, I had a crush.

  I had seen Michael when he had come in for his interview, I had been about 8 months pregnant at the time and the cheeky bugger asked me out for a drink. So I had a huge smile on my
face on his first day at work. He wolf whistled when he saw me and told me how good I was looking, I reddened with embarrassment, but I was chuffed. I was even more chuffed when he asked me about the baby.

  So now I had something to look forward to every day. I had someone to do my hair for, dress nicely and wear make up for. I had a new object for my affections.

  Michael became my friend. He was a year younger than me, surprise surprise, single and fit, but it was his sense of humour that attracted me to him. He was such a jack the lad, every Monday morning he had a story to tell about his latest conquest. I had pangs of jealousy but what position was I in to expect anything from him.

  So I made friends with him, with him I felt like my old self, I was funny and carefree. I told him all about the kids and their antics, I told him about my mam and dad and my Granny and Karen, but I said little about Keith. If he thought there was a problem he didn’t mention it. When I was with Michael, Keith didn’t exist.

  Itsy Bitsy Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

  At home things were much the same as always, every now and again Keith made an effort with me and the kids. I think it was when he got himself a new girlfriend and he felt guilty.

  One Saturday morning he surprised us by saying he was taking us to the swimming baths. It was a great idea, I had often taken Thomas to the baths but since Bethany had come along it hadn’t been possible, no way could I take two little ones in the pool without drowning one of them. So I excitedly got the kids ready and packed up all of our stuff. It was such a rare occurrence for Keith to do anything with us that even the kids sensed it and were all excited, so excited that Bethany puked all over Keith’s new car. He was surprisingly calm as I hastily cleaned it up.

  After the conundrum of getting the 3 of us dressed in the tiny family cubicle, putting armbands on Thomas and getting Bethany’s baby ring inflated, we emerged into the baby pool where Keith was waiting for us.