Love That Lasts Forever

by Pat Barrow

  I was relieved that nothing about Mum’s plans was mentioned the next day. It was like last night’s bombshell had never happened. We went ice-skating in Telford and one of my friends was there so we ended up going to McDonald’s for a special treat afterwards. We dashed home and before we knew, it was four o’clock and Dad was outside tooting his horn. Jonty, as usual, couldn’t wait to get down the path, barely pausing to say goodbye to Mum. Mum and I clung a bit harder than usual to each other and there were tears in her eyes as we said goodbye. “See you on Wednesday, Mum,” I said as brightly as I could manage.

  I wasn’t sure whether or not to say anything to Dad, but maybe I should have done because later that evening, Jonty blurted it out. “Mum’s leaving us, she’s going to live in Newcastle and we’ve got to go there for our holidays, all of them.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. I tried to put Mum’s plan more accurately to Dad.

  “It seems like I’d better have a chat to your mum. It’s the first I’ve heard of it – just like her to attempt to win you over first. Bloody typical – always trouble that woman. If she’s doing a runner, then I need to know what it’s all about. I wouldn’t be surprised if the boyfriend isn’t around in this little arrangement. How convenient to say it’s work and trust her to blame you two and me. It’s obvious really, if there wasn’t a boyfriend, she’d have wanted to take you two as well. Didn’t think of that now, did you? And you didn’t wonder why? Oh, Hetty, so grown up, but so gullible.”

  I’d never really doubted Mum but now it was happening again as I began to question Mum’s ‘story’, Dad’s doubts somehow seemed so plausible and so I somehow didn’t challenge Jonty when he told Dad that Mum had blamed Dad for making arrangements she didn’t like and then that she’d said that Dad had left her with no choice – that it was all his fault that she had decided to leave and now Jonty was equally unhappy about Mum’s plans and wasn’t going there in the holidays. I just sat and listened to Dad’s angry retort and his promise that ‘no one will force either of you’. It didn’t give me much hope that Dad was going to listen to Mum. For a fleeting second, I hated them both – why couldn’t I have a mum and a dad like Suzie had – a warm, cuddly mum and a quiet, rather boring dad.

  Of course Dad spoke to Mum during the week and then on Tuesday evening, he talked to us again. “Mmm, it seems you’re right. Your mum is upping sticks and moving to Newcastle, she’s got a transfer all arranged. How convenient. Anyhow, if she thinks that you’re going up there to stay for half the holidays, she’s got another thing coming. It just doesn’t work like that and anyway she hasn’t got anywhere near enough annual leave to be able to manage it and she hasn’t got any family left up there and she hasn’t been in touch with friends for years.”

  Of course Dad had got Aunty Nicky. She was always around any times when he wasn’t during the holidays so there was never any problem covering and anyway he always seemed to be able to take as much time off as he wanted because he was the boss. I knew Mum’s holidays were more limited so I guessed he had got a point. Maybe Mum didn’t really want us to stay very often and was just saying it when she knew it couldn’t happen. All those little doubts and fears, always there, making it impossible for me to make any sense of the horrible mess I was sinking in – like quicksand, a bottomless pit that would slowly drag me under.

  “Well, I’ll probably arrange for her to have a few days in each of the holidays with you, but she’ll have to come down and fetch you and bring you back home and I don’t expect that she’ll want to do that. It would certainly test her commitment.” He laughed that nasty hollow laugh which I’d heard more often recently.

  “But Dad, Dad that just wouldn’t be fair.”

  “What wouldn’t be fair?” retorted Dad. “It’s your mum who has decided to go so it’s hardly going to be fair to expect me to drive halfway across the country just to fit in with her arrangements. Come on, Hetty, show a bit of sense.” Put like that, Dad’s point of view sounded perfectly reasonable. “No, no, no. Your mum will just have to put up with it and if she doesn’t want to come down and fetch you, then tough. I guess she won’t see you – she’ll just have to prove how much she really cares.”

  “Well, that suits me anyhow,” said Jonty, “because we’ll have a new puppy by then. I won’t really be able to go and leave him.”

  “I don’t even want a puppy,” I screeched. I certainly didn’t want a puppy if it meant that I couldn’t see my mum. “And anyway, I don’t know why you have to be so mean Dad, why can’t you meet Mum half way? That’s what Katie’s mum does ’cos her dad lives a long way away.”

  “Whatever Katie does isn’t anything to do with us,” said Dad. “This is for me and your mum to decide and I’m certainly not going to have you telling me what’s fair and what isn’t, Hetty. So enough, leave this to the grownups.”

  “But Dad, it’s about us…” I tailed off – the look of utter contempt that crossed Dad’s face stopped me in my tracks. I felt completely crushed. Dad didn’t usually get short with me, but it had happened more recently. If I voiced an alternative opinion to his, he made it very clear that it wasn’t that he didn’t agree with me but that it wasn’t possible for anybody else to even consider another version or interpretation. I felt sick with worry. It seemed like all my worst fears were about to unfold. I was going to lose my mum. I had no one to talk to, nobody understood and if I did try and talk to my dad, all he did was get angry. And if I tried to talk to my mum, all she got was upset. So, I was left with nobody.

  Sure enough by the next week, there was a ‘to let’ notice outside Mum’s house. So, she really was going. I had hoped perhaps she wouldn’t really go. As usual, Jonty hadn’t come on the Wednesday so it was just Mum and me and somehow when Jonty wasn’t there, it made it easier to talk to Mum. I didn’t like to admit it but I know that it was because I could say things to Mum which I knew wouldn’t get back to Dad. Jonty was his ears and his eyes, anything and everything he’d report it back to Dad. It seemed to be his way of scoring brownie points and Dad just lapped it up; I could feel it building a wedge between him and me and I felt so desperate – this was the last thing that I wanted to happen. So when I got the opportunity to chat to Mum, I grabbed it.

  She talked some more about her job in Newcastle and how she was considering finding a property on the coast at Whitley Bay and getting the Metro into town each day to save driving and parking. She had fond memories of Whitley Bay and had decided it would be a super place to live. It all seemed so cut and dried, as though Mum had been planning her move for ages, but had kept us in the dark until the last moment. Her new job started on 1 August, in no time at all really. Was she just using the new arrangements as an excuse? Was the real reason that that she wanted to go and have a fresh start without us?

  Properties in the Whitley Bay area were apparently a similar price to houses in Shrewsbury, whereas they were much dearer in Newcastle on Tyne itself, so Mum hoped she’d be able to get herself a three bedroomed seaside house. She had looked up old friends who lived in the area and she was going to go up and stay with Sarah and her husband, Tony, for a long weekend. She would probably stay with them for a few weeks when she started her new job until she could sort something out for herself. Working for a bank meant that it would be much easier for her to get a mortgage. I guess it was just making the monthly payments that was the hard bit but as Mum said, this job would be at a higher grade than her current one so money wouldn’t be such a struggle for her. I just didn’t see how, if she was staying with someone else, she’d be able to fit me and Jonty in. Perhaps she didn’t really want to – that niggly little voice again droning in my head.

  Mum explained that she and Dad had tried to have a discussion but surprise, surprise, they couldn’t agree about how often Jonty and I would come up to stay. Dad was adamant that he wouldn’t share the travelling. Sadly, there wasn’t time to waste and she would have to go back to court and get an agreement set out in a court order. She attem
pted to reassure me that she’d never go and leave everything up in the air without any firm plans for Jonty and me being made.

  I respected her for that and I realised then that I did trust her, but did I trust my dad? No, if I was really honest – if I dared to be honest, I don’t think I did. I’d known for ages that Dad lied when it was convenient or twisted the truth to suit him. There had been that time when he had been in bed with his secretary and he had lied about being at work. If I was really straight with myself, I knew that he had encouraged us to misjudge Mum always making himself seem the ‘good guy’ and somehow Mum being the one to blame. But when I was with him, I found it impossible to challenge him, the thought of telling him he was lying, I just couldn’t. I sort of went to jelly inside, I feared his sarcastic response and him not loving me. He always had an answer ready which left me floundering and tongue tied. Perhaps it was like Mum said it had been for her, when she stopped believing in him and idolising him, he turned against her, it was all or nothing. So with that fear nagging away I had to keep on convincing him by hanging on to every word he said that he was the only one for me otherwise I’d lose him. The hard, cold truth was that it was all or nothing with me and Dad. I knew that. I also knew that was the only reason Mum had decided that she needed to move away. Of course, I wanted her to keep on being there for us, well for me, but I could see now that it would always be the same, it would always be a battle to spend time with her because whatever arrangements were in place Dad would always fight to change them. Dad had to keep in control. Let’s face it, he was jealous of everyone else threatening his place in my life and Jonty’s. I knew deep down that he had to control me; that wasn’t what I wanted but I wasn’t strong enough to resist because in spite of all his bad points, and yeah there were lots. I loved him, I loved him so much it sort of hurt and I needed him – he was part of me and I couldn’t imagine coping without him. He’d always been my big idol and I didn’t think that could ever change but I really, really wanted both Mum and Dad and now it seemed like I was going to lose a huge chunk of Mum. I believed her when she promised we could still spend some super times together in the holidays and being by the seaside would be different and exciting. Very different to Shrewsbury or Welshpool. When I could gather my thoughts rationally, I was reasonably cheerful about the new possibilities, but when other thoughts and doubts slipped in, I just felt wretched and blamed myself. I hated myself; I blamed Jonty; I hated Jonty; I blamed my mum and I hated my mum; I blamed my dad but I couldn’t hate him.

  I tried talking to Jonty again the next evening. It was difficult, he had dug his heels in and had made his mind up that he didn’t like the sound of going to Newcastle at all and of course Dad had encouraged him to believe it was entirely his choice whether to ever go there. He perked up a bit when I said it was most likely going to be Whitley Bay and that was by the sea, but he still moaned about the puppy which we hadn’t even got yet and I doubted we ever would. Dad kept saying, “Well, in a few months when everything is settled.” But the weeks just flew by and still no puppy. Jonty continued to moan about leaving Dad as well. He had never really had a problem with leaving Dad until recently but just lately, it seemed that he didn’t want Dad to be out of his sight. And Dad seemed to pander to it rather than telling Jonty to ‘grow up’ as he sometimes used to say when Jonty was particularly tiresome.

  The summer was progressing; it would be my birthday soon and Jonty’s after that. Before we even knew it, it would be the end of term and next year I’d be going to the senior school. I’d had no difficulty passing the exam and at nearly thirteen, I felt quite grown up. I think my mum recognised more than Dad that I was maturing, beginning to form my own independent views and needing to exercise a degree of autonomy. There was something about Dad that made me realise that he wanted, no he needed, to keep me as his little girl. Perhaps Mum moving away would give me a chance to be me when I was there with her. It was that thought that helped me to cope rather than watch myself shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.

  Chapter 24

  Within a few weeks, Mum had begun packing. It had all happened so quickly, I suppose a bit of me had hoped that it wouldn’t run smoothly and so delay progress and she’d have a change of heart and stay. But no, she was really excited and there was every sign that matters would be completed very quickly. Mum had been up to stay with Sarah and Tony for a long weekend and she came back excitedly telling us there were lots of properties on the market in her price range and some were almost on the seafront. She clearly loved Whitley Bay describing it as a lively place which she was sure we would love. Newcastle was a beautiful city, much bigger than Welshpool or Shrewsbury with cinemas and art galleries, shops and a recently developed waterfront with the amazing Sage Centre across the river in Gateshead for concerts and events.

  I was sort of pleased for her but at the same time, I felt angry. It sounded like she was really looking forward to going even though that meant leaving us. She didn’t seem to be too concerned about how difficult it would be for me and Jonty, she just sort of assumed that we’d share her excitement. I was curious, I wanted to know what it was like but I was also scared, really scared. Dad never mentioned her going and when I brought it up and Jonty started telling him what she’d told us, he just said, “Oh never mind all that now, I’m sure she’ll tell us all sooner or later.” He made it very clear that as far as he was concerned, she barely existed. I felt as though I’d got to keep Mum and Dad in two separate compartments and juggle them so as not to mix them up. I guess that the bit of me that my mum got was getting squeezed smaller and smaller. Would she eventually just vanish?

  It was a couple of weeks later when Mum asked me if I wanted to come up with her to have a look around Whitley Bay. She hoped that Jonty would want to come too and was suggesting a date in mid-June when we had a couple of PD days, so it would not mean missing any activities on the Saturday. It sounded a great idea but then with a sinking feeling, I realised that for a start Jonty wouldn’t want to go and then Dad would come up with some reason or other why it wasn’t possible for me to go either. In spite of that, I talked enthusiastically to Mum about it, especially when she said that by then she hoped she’d have some houses to view.

  Sure enough when I brought it up with Dad, his immediate response was, “Well, I don’t think that’s a particularly good idea, Hetty. You see your mum’s dragging us back to court, she won’t see sense, she’s totally unrealistic and the idea that dragging you all the way up there before you even know whether you’re going to be able to go at all is a really bad idea. In fact, not one that is even worth considering.” Cold water poured down my back; well that’s what it felt like. What was I going to tell Mum? She’d be so disappointed and yet Dad’s arguments seemed, as usual, so reasonable. I knew they were going back to court but surely, it wouldn’t be like Dad just said that we wouldn’t be allowed to even see Mum in Whitley Bay or Newcastle? Panicky feelings filled my head.

  “But Dad, they’re not going to stop us going, are they?”

  “Well, it’s not that, Hetty, you see it’s your mum not being reasonable and expecting me to put myself out and drive all the way up there and back and leave you in some place I don’t even know. It wouldn’t be responsible of me – there are so many ifs and buts and well, we can’t trust her, can we? So you see, it just isn’t that simple. You don’t understand, you’re not old enough to appreciate the complications and the risks.”

  “But Dad, I’m nearly thirteen, of course I understand. It’s up to me, surely I can say whether I want to go or not.”

  “Mmm. You’re a bit too big for your boots sometimes you know, Hetty. You and Jonty aren’t old enough to make decisions like this for yourselves. I will decide because I know what’s best, I am responsible for your safety and wellbeing. You’re in my care, not your mum’s.”

  “But I thought –”

  “I don’t really care what you think, Hetty.”

  “But, Dad, I thought you had to share…” />
  “That’s only in name, it’s not the reality of it. We just had to go along with that to keep your mum sweet. The truth is that you live with me, I’m your main carer, I look after you and I’m the one who’s always there for you and your mum just pops up and down when it suits her and now she’s planning to move hundreds of miles away. That’s not caring about you, I’ve told you, Hetty, she doesn’t really care about you and Jonty at all and she’s doing this just to get back at me. It’s spite, pure spite. She’d much rather just pack her bags and go and start a new life with her new boyfriend.”

  “But Dad, I don’t think she’s got a boyfriend.”

  “Look, everything that she tells you, you just lap it all up – you believe her cock and bull stories, you take everything on board as the absolute truth. Hetty, one day you’ll see the truth, you’ll see through her just like I did. I just hope it’s not going to be too late. I don’t want you wasting your life hoping for something that’s never going to happen. She’s never going to be there for you, face reality.” And with that, he was gone.

  I was totally shell shocked. I couldn’t believe what he had just said. Surely, Mum cared about me and Jonty. Surely, she did, but if so, why was she going? “Oh come on, Hetty,” said that sensible little voice in my head. “You know that your dad’s too tricky for her just like he is for you and he isn’t ever, ever going to change. You know that and Mum knows that and your mum’s doing something about it.” I bashed the thoughts out of my head, I didn’t want them there, they made it all too difficult.