Escape to Giddywell Grange

by Kim Nash

  How could something like this have got me so worked up? It was no good; I decided I may as well get it over and done with, like ripping off a sticking plaster. I stomped over to the envelope, counted to five and opened it. A sheet of A4 paper dropped from my shaking hands onto the floor. It was no good, I had to read it.

  Maddy, it’s been a while. How are you?

  Cheeky bastard. ‘It’s been a while!’ It had only ‘been a while’ because the last time I saw him, he was literally in the middle of shagging one of his clients and that was on top of the fact that I’d been devastated about what had recently happened too. My blood was beginning to boil.

  Over the last couple of years I’ve spent time with other people, but none of them are like you. They don’t make me laugh like you do, they don’t turn me on like you do, and they don’t work as hard as you do. They’re just not you. I miss you Maddy.

  I know about the redundancy and it doesn’t matter to me. What I want, Maddy, is for you and I to be together again. I want us to work together again and be a couple again. A team. You and me against the world, just like we used to be.

  I’d love to chat to you, to see if you’ll forgive me and take me back. I need you and would love to hold you in my arms again. Please get in touch and say we can try again. I have always and will always love you, J x

  OMG! What the hell was this? It was so totally and utterly out of the blue, I literally did not know what to make of it. This was what I’d longed for so many times after we split up. I wanted him to apologise and tell me it meant nothing to him. To beg me to reconsider and take him back. That I was all he ever wanted and needed and that he’d been stupid and given in to ridiculous primal urges. If he’d done that, I’m sure we could have got through his dalliance if that were the only issue.

  It had taken me a long time to get rid of the image of his arse pumping up and down while Alisa smirked at me over his shoulder as I stood in stunned silence. It took far too long for him to even realise that I was there, and jump up and have the decency to cover himself up, whilst at the same time, exposing Alisa to the elements, so that she flashed her snatch right at me! Bloody hell, there are some things that you really just can’t unsee!

  I couldn’t believe he’d done that to me and especially not then. I thought that my heart would literally never recover from such a betrayal. I wondered if it was my fault. Whether it was because of what had happened…

  Three weeks beforehand, I’d found out I was pregnant. I was on the pill, but it must have happened when I’d had a bad stomach after a dodgy curry so the pill wasn’t effective. I’d realised recently that my period was late, which was very unusual for me and I’d worried about it for days until I decided one day, without saying anything to anyone, that I should probably do a test. I knew there was a pretty remote chance that I was pregnant, but thought that perhaps stressing about it was making it worse so decided it was time to find out once and for all and put my mind at rest.

  With shaking hands, I picked up the test after the required two minutes and read the word pregnant! I was shocked. I had no idea what to do. Should I tell Jamie yet? I felt I needed a bit of time to get my own head around it before I told him. For two days, I’d worked late, gone in early and tried to avoid him as much as possible. I made a doctor’s appointment and it was confirmed that I was definitely pregnant. Over that time it had started to sink in. I was going to be a mum. At first, it was scary. I worried about whether I could be a good enough mum, like my wonderful mum. I’d never really thought about being a parent. Jamie and I had never really talked about it, either even though we’d been together for years. I didn’t think he particularly liked children, to be honest. He was always commenting about people he worked with putting their kids before work and he couldn’t understand it. But once it had started to sink in, I started to think about a future as a family. Jamie, our baby and me. And I liked what the future had in store for us. We’d already committed to living together and being together forever, we often talked about growing old together. This way there’d just be more of us in our family unit. The more I thought about it, the more excited I became. I pictured walking down the street pushing a pram, with our baby inside it. Once I’d got used to it, I loved the idea and I wanted to share it with Jamie, sure that he’d feel the same way.

  I realised that I was just prolonging something that I really needed to tell him, so I made him his favourite meal of steak and chips, opened a good bottle of red and plucked up the courage to say that I couldn’t drink when he went to pour a glass for me.

  ‘Are you having to take antibiotics for something, babe?’

  ‘No Jamie, I’m… I’m…’ I struggled to put the sentence together.

  ‘Spit it out, babe. The football is on in a bit.’

  ‘I’m pregnant!’ I blurted.

  Jamie laughed.

  ‘Nice one! But you can’t fool me!’ But when I didn’t smile, his grin dropped and he became deadly serious.

  ‘Tell me you are joking,’ he whispered.

  ‘I’m not joking Jamie. I’m pregnant.’ I was so relieved the words were out. It was amazing how just one short sentence was so life-changing.

  He stood and paced the room, holding his head. I stood up and tried to comfort him but he gently pushed me away.

  ‘But you’re on the pill,’ he said.

  I explained that it must have happened when I was ill.

  ‘This is just the worst news ever!’

  That sentence hit me like a ton of bricks. He slammed out of the flat. I sat up until two a.m. waiting for him to come back but by then I was shattered and fell into bed, exhaustion taking over my body. He still hadn’t returned by the time I had to go to work the next day.

  Worried sick, I sent a text first thing which he replied to later that morning, to say that he was staying with a friend for a few days and that he’d be in touch soon.

  For the next few days, my emotions were on a rollercoaster, one minute seeing us playing happy families together once Jamie had got round to the idea of it, and then seeing me on my own with our baby. But in every picture, I was a mum. And I was a great mum and I loved my baby totally and unconditionally. Well, I had a wonderful teacher.

  Being pregnant in those early days was exhausting, morning sickness lasting nearly all day, and totally wearing me out so I took as many opportunities as I could to nap. I was told that at ten weeks pregnant, it hopefully shouldn’t last too much longer, maybe a couple more weeks, all being well.

  One morning, I woke to griping pains low down in my belly and I knew immediately that something was not right. As I looked down, the pure white Egyptian cotton sheets were a contrast to the red pool that was forming between my legs. I dragged myself to the toilet and wiped myself as much as I could. As I did this, I knew that there was something terribly wrong and I rang an ambulance. Once admitted to A&E, I was taken for a scan and told that it had gone. My baby had gone. But it wasn’t just my baby that had gone. It was all my dreams of the future. Our family.

  I texted Jamie from the hospital and he arrived two hours later to take me home. He was quiet when he arrived. He didn’t comfort me. He kept his distance. The doctors and nurses reassured me that there was all probability that I could get pregnant again and that miscarriages were a natural part of life and that it happened to lots of ladies.

  Once home, he changed the sheets on the bed and I couldn’t wait to sleep. To shut everything away. Jamie brought me a cup of tea later that evening and he sat on the bed and held my hand.

  ‘It’s probably for the best, Madison.’

  Snatching my hand away, I turned over, my back now facing him. Tears streamed down my face. Something so precious to me had been lost. How could he possibly say that it was for the best? I’d lost something that I’d never be able to replace. My future with my baby.

  Celine had been told that I had flu and was keeping away from the office. Refusing to get up for two days, I could tell that Jamie was starting to get pisse
d off with me but I couldn’t seem to shake it off. I was overwhelmed by the sadness that I felt. On the third day, I realised that Jamie’s life was going on as normal and that he’d already forgotten why I was feeling so bad. It was almost like I’d just got a cold, in his eyes, and I’d be over it in a day or two. He clearly didn’t realise that this was something that I would never get over. I made the effort to get dressed, and oh boy, was it an effort. He dropped me off at work on his way into town and I said that I’d see him later. We’d hardly spoken for days and as I got out of the car, he leaned over to me and called me back.

  ‘Madison. You really do have to pull yourself together, you know. It’s happened and it’s over. You have to move on.’

  How could this man that I loved so deeply have no regard at all for my feelings? How could he tell me to just move on?

  This wasn’t just a baby that hadn’t been born. This was a life that wasn’t going to be lived. My toddler not taking its first steps. Not reading to my child at bedtime. Not being able to take them to nursery and then to school. Not watching them go to their prom, not watching them get married.

  Every magical moment that a parent goes through with their child had been stolen from me. Our future together, wiped out, and I couldn’t just forget that, the way that he obviously could.

  I couldn’t concentrate on a thing at work and at lunchtime Celine said she thought it would be better if she sent me home in a taxi as I’d messed up the three tasks she’d asked me to do in the morning, and still looked so dreadful. She said it was clearly the flu and she didn’t want everyone else to get it too.

  When I arrived home, Jamie’s car was in his parking space. I decided that I’d go up and ask him to hold me in his arms. I knew that once he realised how I was feeling, now he was getting over the shock of the last few days, he’d be there for me. He would be my rock, to support me.

  But when I got into the flat, I found him with Alisa.

  * * *

  Running out of the flat, he’d tried to follow me, but got the sheet wrapped around his leg and fell over the coffee table and the last words I heard leave his mouth were ‘Ouch! Fucking fuck, bollocks, fuck, shit!’ Charming. No: ‘Sorry, Maddy’. No: ‘Maddy, don’t go’. No: ‘It’s not what you think’ (although it would have been pretty hard to get out of that one). No explanation, nothing. And not one bit of sympathy for what had happened over the last few days. All those words that could have possibly repaired the damage to our lives yet he couldn’t find a single one.

  Giddywell would always be my home and Mum welcomed me with open arms when she saw me standing on her doorstep with tears streaming down my face. She knew what it took for me to trust someone in my life and how devastated I was. I had not recovered from it for a very long time. I knew that I would never be the same again and the impact of first the miscarriage and then his infidelity would affect me forever. I went through a stage of not wanting to leave the house, didn’t want to bump into people. I just wanted my mum to look after me. She seemed to know how I felt.

  A quick text from me to Jamie telling him to pack his things and leave was the only contact we’d had. And I hadn’t heard a word since. Until this.

  Part of me wanted to meet him because I was intrigued and wondered why the hell he was getting in touch now. Part of me wanted to go to just punch him in the face then leave. But that wouldn’t be very dignified of me, even though it would be quite satisfying. And the other part of me wanted to screw the note up into a little ball and throw it onto an open fire and pretend I’d never seen it. I hadn’t a clue what to do. I needed to talk to Beth, and see what she said, although I could probably imagine. I knew it was early, but when I looked out of my window, her bedroom curtains were open so I knew she was awake and I grabbed my fleece off the back of a dining room chair, popped my shoes on and headed over to the farmhouse.

  As I walked into the kitchen, my shoes click-clacked across the old stone floor. This house was amazing, so cosy and simply furnished in a mish-mash of styles, which all perfectly blended with the décor. It had beautiful cast iron open fireplaces in every room, which in winter were all lit permanently, making it a place that you never wanted to leave. There wasn’t a soul around and I breathed in the familiarity of this big old beautiful house. The long, wood-panelled hallway led to the most stunning sweeping staircase that I had always loved and a curved polished wooden bannister that we all used to slide down as kids and come to a flying stop just before we hit the huge sideboard at the bottom. I used to imagine myself gracefully gliding down the stairs, channelling my inner Scarlet O’Hara, in a stunning ball gown and elbow-length white silk gloves, ready to meet my beau (Alex, it was always Alex in my dreams) who would be anticipating my arrival at the foot of the stairs, dressed in a frockcoat, tails and boots, to whisk me away in his arms, to dance elegantly in the ballroom, unable to tear his eyes away from me.

  Pushing these silly teenage fairy tale notions away, I went straight up to Beth’s room, knocked and entered to find her propped up in bed, reading. I threw the letter at her, and she frowned as she read it. ‘What the fucking fuck?!’

  ‘I know! That was exactly my reaction too.’

  ‘Well please tell me that there’s not even one tiny bit of you that wants to actually go.’ She passed me the letter back.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Not sure? You are kidding, right?’

  ‘Well I thought perhaps I’d just go and see what he’s got to say. There’s just a little bit of me that’s curious about why he’s getting in touch now.’

  ‘Clearly, he’s after something. Where’s he been for the last three years? Shagging his way round Europe by the look of his Facebook page, which I’ve always got my eye on.’

  ‘Ok, so you don’t think I should go then?’ I smiled at her.

  ‘No I bloody well don’t. I don’t even want to discuss it any more. He cheated on you at a time when he should have been supporting you. He left you broken and devastated. How can you even think of it? I’ll not speak about it again, Maddy. That’s the end of the conversation. Ok?’

  ‘Oh ok, you’d better tell me how you are then.’

  Beth talked to me for the next ten minutes but to tell the truth, I had absolutely no idea what she said. I was finding it difficult to process anything she was saying. I was just thinking about the fact that despite Beth’s good intentions and advice, the half of me that was telling me to get dressed up, show him what he was missing and see what it was all about, was overtaking the half of me that thought I shouldn’t go.

  * * *

  Excusing myself by saying I had the beginnings of a headache, I went back over to the barn, and put the TV on to fill the time before Mum arrived. There was a cooking programme on, and I was watching it, but not taking any of it in. My mind was all over the place, dredging up memories both good and bad, about how Jamie had changed my life for what I thought was the better, then stolen it all away.

  But he was also the man who I had given everything to and had loved with all my heart. The man I’d met at a cocktail party I’d gone along to on behalf of Ronington’s. The man who had seen me standing alone and come over to talk to me, saying that I looked beautiful but alone. The man who worked for a rival PR company and knew all about me and my work life. He’d obviously done his research. The man who had then wooed me for weeks, gently edging his way into my life, making himself so indispensable that in the end I couldn’t bear to live without him. The man who knew I had relationship issues and one Christmas gave me a box with a key to his house and a toothbrush to leave there. The man who eventually asked me to move in, surely that was proof of his commitment to me. The man who, if he got home from work first, and I’d had a long and stressful day, would run me a bath, light candles and welcome me at the front door with a rum and coke and let me luxuriate in a long soak while he cooked dinner.

  He was the man I had given my whole heart to. I loved our life and it was no hardship to me to put everything on hold and
devote my whole life to him, to the detriment of my friends and Mum, I realised later, although I didn’t see it at the time. I loved him so intensely and really thought that he was the love of my life and the centre of my world.

  We had an amazing life together. With two fantastic salaries coming in, we had the best of everything. We went on the most exotic holidays; the two weeks we spent in the Maldives were the best of my life, just him and me in a stunning water bungalow, overlooking the sparking turquoise sea, with tropical fish swimming around our ankles as we dangled our feet over the decking. I felt so incredibly loved at that time, walking around the island, holding hands, and drinking cocktails gazing at the most glorious sunsets from the Sundowner bar.

  Just a normal weekend for us was filled with shopping and hospitality. We’d walk into the local town and share a bottle of wine, chatting about everything and nothing. We had designer everything. For me, it was handbags and sunglasses. For him, it was suits and ties. Sometimes he was just a little flash and cocky though. I remembered the day that he bought his Tag Heuer watch and flashed it around in the pub. When the bar guy admired it, he said that he had paid more for his watch than the bar guy would earn in a month and laughed. I laughed along with him but then afterwards realised that what he’d said was cruel and crass. Money was no object to either of us but it wasn’t until afterwards that I realised that these were just things.