Perfect Ten

by Jacqueline Ward

  I’d told you fine. That’s OK. I’d already packed and I would have their suitcases ready. There was a silence. An awkward silence, the kind where I knew something horrible was going to spill out of your mouth. Something hurtful. You did it for effect. So I braced myself. It was the beginning of what you would eventually hold up in public as ‘bad motherhood’.

  ‘Right. That’s …er … well, it’s a bit awkward.’ Exactly as I thought. Awkward. ‘The thing is, I need the extra two hours to go and buy them a complete new wardrobe. I might as well come out and say it. You haven’t been … coping, have you? I mean, they’re not … clean.’

  I rallied. Fuck off, Jack.

  ‘Clean clothes? Is that what you’re griping about? Yes. They are clean. I wash them. Just like before.’

  More silence. What could possibly come next?

  ‘I didn’t just mean the clothes. I mean them. And, let’s be honest, Caroline, you. You’re looking rough and … not well.’

  I returned service, but it had already stung me.

  ‘I’m fine. The kids are fine.’

  As I said it, I eyed myself in the hallway mirror. I did look fine. A bit tired, but I was a full-time single working parent, for God’s sake. I’d lost weight and my cheekbones were more defined. My hair was more blonde and my eyes brighter. Yet the doubts, as ever, crept in. To me, yes, but how did I look to everyone else?

  Depression is usually more obvious to significant others than it is to the person suffering. Things can seem perfectly normal until a relative mentions that they aren’t washing enough or they are staying in bed all day. I checked myself mentally on the HADS depression scale. Was I depressed? On you went.

  ‘I’m taking them to Italy. We’ll be eating in some smart restaurants and I can’t possibly take them there in those kinds of clothes. Washed out and—’

  ‘I thought you said that they weren’t washed? Make your mind up. Washed out or not washed?’

  Another fucking elongated pause. Then the triumphant pitch that I know so well. The tone of victory and superiority.

  ‘Dirty. Dirty, Caroline.’

  It stung. It’s every mother’s worst nightmare: that someone criticises the way you look after your kids. I felt something about me shrink. When my voice finally escaped, it was involuntarily raised several octaves.

  ‘They’re not dirty, Jack. They have a bath or a shower every day.’

  ‘I meant their clothes. Laura had the same socks on two days running last week. Those red and yellow stripes.’

  ‘Yes, she did. And I’d washed them in between.’

  And there it was. I’d engaged. That engagement lasted from that moment until the next thinly guised complaint. You picked them up at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning with a cheery, ‘Come on, kids, let’s go shopping,’ and a sly side glance at me.

  I was going to paint their bedrooms. I’d already bought the paint and had the rollers ready. Instead, I drove to the local Asda and bought a trolley-load of cleaning stuff. Bleach, detergent, floor cleaner, polish, washing powder, toilet cleaner. You name it, I had it.

  I spent the next week either cleaning or sitting in my office thinking about cleaning. I scrubbed until my hands were red raw. On the Friday afternoon I checked into a local health spa and had my hair and nails done. Then I went late-night shopping in Manchester and bought the kids a full wardrobe of new clothes each and myself new black jeans and a white top.

  Early on Saturday morning I was sitting in new clothes in my newly sterile house. I remember looking around and thinking that it didn’t look lived in. I told myself it was just until you dropped them off, then Charlie and Laura would immediately make their mark on the house and it would all feel normal again. Whatever that was.

  You left it until the very last minute. I sat in the kitchen all day, on edge. I hadn’t eaten properly all week and when I heard the front gate click and hurried to the door I had a head rush. I ran through the hallway and, on the way, glanced at myself in the mirror. Somehow I looked worse! How could that be? I had new clothes, new hair, smooth skin and carefully applied make-up.

  Charlie and Laura ran to me and hugged me, then ran past me and upstairs to their rooms. I panicked a little. Had I promised them that I would decorate their rooms? I thought I had meant it to be a secret, but everything had been so confused this week that I couldn’t remember.

  You sniffed. It was almost imperceptible, but I saw it. You looked around the kitchen and there I was like a fucking dog, begging for approval. Ever the ambassador, I made the first awkward move.

  ‘Did you have a good time?’

  You didn’t look at me. You looked past me.

  ‘Yeah. Great. Been busy?’

  Temper rising, but I kept it down. I willed myself to not answer. If I don’t say anything, I can’t sound mad, can I? You walked around the kitchen, some kind of cruel inspection. I could hear the kids upstairs, but I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Fear that you would find something out of place. Another stick to beat me with. Finally, you stopped in front of me and lifted my chin until I was looking into your eyes.

  ‘That’s better.’

  It was a murmur. Despite my extreme stress and fear, which at that time I hadn’t really understood, I felt love. I felt love for you. Care, the old kind. You touched me and my body bent to you, just as I thought it would do for the rest of my life. For a second I held the hope that we would get back together. That you would come home. For a second I wanted you to.

  You turned and walked away, leaving my soul wrecked once more. This process would be repeated weekly, sometimes daily, for months and months. I know now that when I looked in the mirror that day, it wasn’t my clothes or my hair that made me look worse. I was being worn down from the inside out.

  That was until the children were gone. I worked harder and harder to keep the house spotless for your weekly inspections. I bought complex washing powder and endlessly researched fabric conditioner to find out which would make their clothes smell nice after you said they were musty.

  I’d asked the children why they had new clothes. They’d looked at each other and said that Daddy liked to buy them things. I’d asked them who chose the clothes and they stared at me. Charlie’s arms were very straight by his sides. Laura was blinking at me.

  ‘Daddy says we can’t tell you. It’s for your own good.’

  I sat on my haunches in front of them.

  ‘Look, you two, whatever Daddy says, I love you. For ever. It doesn’t matter who chooses the clothes. I’m your mummy and I love you.’

  I gathered my scared-stiff children towards me. They didn’t bend in my arms; they were just waiting for me to let them go. It made me worse, knowing that you were turning them against me too. I’d told myself that whatever you did to me, eventually you would get bored and leave me alone. It would be over and then I could start the healing process. Get over it. Let it go.

  It just carried on. The judging and the thinly veiled threats. Wiping your finger across the top of the lounge door as you stared at me. Picking up a hair from the stair carpet. Looking me up and down like I was a piece of shit. Then making me believe that it had all been a big mistake and that you loved me again.

  I ironed into the early hours and got up at six o’clock to clean. Even through the divorce proceedings, when I realised that you were trying to drive me mad. Even though I wasn’t, you’d made me look like I was. You even told the courts that I had obsessive compulsive disorder. That I was an obsessive cleaner.

  In the end, the thing that lost me my kids was me. I can picture myself in that room, crying and wailing. Shouting out my denials and my solicitor telling me to calm down. In fact, I was a mirror to everything you and your mother were saying. Unbalanced. Neurotic. Obsessive. You didn’t produce any evidence at all, but the state of me that day was enough.

  All the hard work you did, wearing me down, bullying me, hurting me, manipulating me, it all paid off that day. It was all left open, of course. No one said that I could
n’t see my kids, which only leaves one conclusion, doesn’t it – that I chose not to.

  Nothing could be further from the truth. I was scared. Scared stiff. Yes. Dr Caroline Atkinson, Ph.D. With the nice house and the nice car. I was scared and confused and you made sure I had no one to talk to. I couldn’t even tell the friends I had left, like Eileen and Fiona, because guess what? I was scared. I didn’t choose not to see my kids. I made sure I actually saw them every day that I could, from a distance. But I was too scared to go near them because of what you would do to me.

  This doesn’t wash with people in general. I know this. Why didn’t she leave? Why didn’t she call the police? Why didn’t she just go and see her kids? All the usual questions from people who have never been scared shitless of someone who is deeply involved in their lives, who, at the end of it all – after the hearings and the injunctions – will still be there to carry on.

  I tried to tell them that you’d made me like that, but it was too late. Much too late. This is a place that I don’t like to go to, Jack, but only you and I know what happened that day when you came to get the children for the last time.

  Chapter Five

  Unbelievably, I’d held it together when I came home from the family meeting. I’d gone to school to get them and I was so used to the constant acting over the pain that I smiled and laughed with the other mothers, and sing-songed the children into my car. I didn’t start the engine straight away because I was seriously contemplating just driving. Just driving and not stopping until we were far, far away.

  I couldn’t understand how today I was able to see my children. To pick them up, to take them home and to give them their tea. Then, at the allotted time, they would be gone, and from then onwards I would have to make an appointment to see them – although I knew full well that those appointments would never be kept.

  I had to do it. I had no choice. So I smiled through it for their sakes. Then, at six o’clock, I heard the gate click and you were here. I was at the top of the stairs, watching you through the little stained-glass window that throws shadows onto the landing. You were confident. Tanned and lean, fighting fit, jubilant from your victory. Here to collect your prize.

  My stomach flipped for the millionth time and I went to open the door. It would be just like they were going out with you, wouldn’t it? Except they wouldn’t be coming back. My chest heaved and the bile rose, but you were in the house with your key before I could open the door.

  You looked past me and into the garden where they were playing.

  ‘I’ll get someone to pick up their bikes.’

  It wasn’t enough. And what did I have to lose. I turned to look at them. They couldn’t hear what was going on in here so I asked you the question that I had wanted to ask since you started this.

  ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

  You fixed your gaze on me and stepped closer.

  ‘Doing what? What, Caroline?’

  ‘I know what you’re doing. I know. You might have everyone else fooled, but not me. So why? That’s what I don’t understand. Why?’

  You smiled, but I could see the irritation in your eyes. You picked up one of the white marble balls out of a bowl on the table and rolled it around slowly beneath your palm.

  ‘You made me. You wouldn’t leave it. You tried to ruin my life.’

  I stared at you.

  ‘How? How did I ruin your life? Surely it’s the other way round?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose it is. But you know, lovely, none of this would have happened if you would have just …’

  ‘What? Turned a blind eye? Left you to it? What, Jack?’

  ‘Stayed quiet. It’s all a game, Caro. But it turns out you don’t know how to play.’

  You threw the marble ball to me, but I didn’t expect it and it smashed into a thousand pieces on the stone kitchen floor. You calmly opened the kitchen door and called Charlie and Laura in. I knew I had to stay composed. I knew you were taking my babies from me and I musn’t cry.

  But they knew too. When it came to it, you hadn’t done the thorough job you thought you had of brainwashing them. Later you would tell me that they were crying because they had to leave their bikes and their toys, but it wasn’t like that at all. You’d been priming them for ages, telling them that they were moving out to give Mummy a break, that they would be living with Daddy for a bit.

  The mistake you made was telling them that I was ill. You were pulling on their coats and suddenly Laura ran to me.

  ‘I want to stay with Mummy. Make her better. If she’s ill, I can make her better.’

  She started to cry and Charlie’s beautiful eyes filled with tears that he tried to bite back. He came to stand beside me and we all stared at you. We stared and blinked at you. You never flinched. Your face was set in a determined expression. I’d started to recognise that look. I’d seen it when I spoke up in court. It was when you clouded with rage.

  I held my children, one on each side of me, and willed all my love to filter into them so that they would know that I would never let them go entirely. You took Laura first, huge tears spilling as you picked her up, and she looked at me over your shoulder. As you got near the door she started to cry and kick, but you held her firmly.

  While you were putting her in your car, Charlie held my face and kissed it. Don’t worry, Mummy. That’s what he said. We’ll come back for you. You won’t be on your own.

  You came back and took him by the hand. He resisted and you picked him up as he punched you and kicked you and shouted, Bye, Mummy. Don’t worry, Mummy.

  Then you were gone. I ran up to the top of the stairs and watched as you struggled with Charlie. He was still punching you as you strapped on his seat belt. I could see them both sobbing, looking up at the house. Looking for me.

  I hid behind the curtain so that I didn’t make it any worse. Then I slumped onto the floor and cried and cried. It’s hard to explain what happened next. Something inside me shifted and I lay on the landing for a full day and night.

  When I did eventually get up, I was different. Or I might have always been like this but it was covered by my idealistic life. I don’t know. Something had drastically changed and I was a more visceral version of me. The love was stronger, the pain was deeper and the hate was keener.

  Every time I closed my eyes I saw my son’s little worried face, telling me not to worry. My daughter crying and screaming. I retreated into a world where it would no longer matter if I expressed my feelings. Howling, crying, vomiting. Pushing the boundaries of my sanity.

  You’d left some clothes at home. Lot of clothes. I spent days cutting them into tiny pieces. I took your beloved vinyl and scratched them all up with a school compass. Then I stamped on the pieces. Then I took a hammer to them and ground those records until they were almost powder.

  As an undergraduate I read about people who put on a mask all day then cried all the time they were alone. I queried this, naively asking what could be so bad that this would continue for years. But that was before I had my children ripped from me by someone who was supposed to care about me and them.

  Now I understood what goes on behind the closed doors of those in pain. The elastic nature of time, where keening takes over and what seems like hours can be minutes. I lost track of the days and nights and kept my curtains closed. I turned off the phones and either unplugged the TV or watched it for twenty-four hours solid.

  The drinking began after the first week. I needed to eat so I ordered a pizza. While I was waiting I drank two bottles of Budweiser that were left over from a barbeque we had had. They were years old but I still drank them. Then I found the bottles of vodka you’d brought back from Russia.

  You’d warned me that they were very valuable. When I thought about it, you’d spoken to me like I was a child. Or stupid. They’re valuable, Caroline, so don’t drink them. It had been the same with everything. Don’t drive too fast, Caroline, or you might crash. Don’t wear that dress, Caroline, or you’ll look fat. Don’t walk
to work, Caroline, you’ll get tired.

  Everything had a patronising explanation tagged onto the end of it. You tolerated me. You were impatient with me. You never wanted me really. You just put up with me.

  You came back on day ten. I heard the gate click and it was too late for the postman. I was sitting in the hallway, behind the door, just staring into space and listening to the world outside the door. People walking up and down the pavement. People who could still function. My neighbours coming and going. The postman. The window cleaner.

  I heard your footfall and I knew it was you. You don’t live with someone all that time and not recognise all their intricacies. In the instant between you opening the front door and me crawling into the cupboard under the stairs I looked into the house. It was a fucking mess. Suddenly I could smell the week-old takeaways and the stale alcohol. I panicked about the clothes and the records but then realised that if you’d really wanted them you would have already taken them. That wasn’t what you were here for.

  I was in the cupboard. I could just see out of the crack as you passed and went into the kitchen. Caroline. You called me. Again, Caroline. You went upstairs and checked the bedrooms. Then you checked the lounge. Then you stood in the kitchen, arms on hips, smiling. You surveyed the chaos and nodded. I’d seen that nod before, when you’d finished felting the shed roof, or painting the landing. I knew what it meant. Job done.

  You left. Your visit had kick-started my insight into what was happening and although I was still rock-bottom, I was standing up and not lying down. The most painful realisation hit me at that moment and I stood in the hallway and watched you drive away. I was going to have to endure this every day of my life. Every morning I was going to have to wake up and remember what had happened.