by Ruth Mancini
“No.” She shook her head. “That never happened, thank God.” She took a deep breath. “It was all great at first. After what happened. With you.” She glanced up and then carried on, hastily. ”We managed to sort that out, and move on. And then I found out I was pregnant with Sky and he seemed really pleased, the whole time I was expecting. He was really sweet to me. He’d come shopping with me and buy things for the baby. He’d fuss over me – rub my feet and stuff, cook for us, things like that. He’d talk about our future as if it was something he wanted. But after Sky was born, that’s when he started to change. It was as though he didn’t want the competition. As if Sky was taking up too much of my time...”
“They do,” I said. “Babies. It’s all consuming, especially in the first few months.”
Catherine nodded. “But he couldn’t deal with that. It was like he was really jealous. It was crazy, when I think about it, the way he acted. You’d think I was rejecting him for another man, the way he behaved. If he was talking to me, or asking me something, and Sky started to cry or wanted feeding and I walked away, he’d go mad. He said that I pandered too much to him, that I should make him wait...”
I gasped. “When he was still just a baby?”
“Yes. He even asked me to stop breastfeeding. He said it made him feel excluded. And I did, because I thought that maybe if he could feed the baby too, he would bond with him more, feel more like he was caring for him, the same as me – although there’s all the other stuff you need to do, like changing and winding, and everything, which he could have done if he’d wanted to – which he should have been doing. But, of course, he didn’t want anything to do with the nappies, and he didn’t have the patience for the winding and stuff. He liked feeding him, it’s true. At first, he would be the one to do that, all the time. But not at night, of course. He hated it when Sky cried in the night. And if he did get woken, he usually wanted... well, you know. Sex. Which was the last thing on my mind, to be honest. I was so exhausted. I just wanted to sleep, every spare minute I could get.”
“Naturally.” I thought back to the those night-time feeds, and the overwhelming tiredness that had come hand-in-hand with the true bliss I’d experienced during the first few months of my daughter’s life. A year earlier, motherhood had not even been remotely on my radar, and yet when she’d arrived, it was as though all my Christmases had come at once. She was nothing short of amazing, and I’d immediately tuned into her so deeply that we were like one. I slept when she slept, I dozed when she dozed and I nursed her with pride whilst sitting in the armchair by the window of my apartment, watching the world go by, my heart swelling with love for this little creature that was so utterly dependent on me for survival. I was devastated for Catherine that what should have been such a joyful experience had been marred by that selfish man, not to mention alarmed for Sky and the unhappy atmosphere that he’d been brought into, that had been his first experience of the world.
“He’d tell me to leave Sky crying,” Catherine continued. “He said that it was good for him, and he had to learn that he couldn’t have everything he wanted the minute he wanted it.”
I clapped my hand to my mouth, tears pricking my eyes. “That’s fine for a toddler, but not for a tiny baby!” I said. “They’re too young to manipulate you. They’re just doing what nature tells them to.”
Catherine nodded. “I know. I didn’t listen to him. I would always pick Sky up. And then he’d just start laying into me, telling me how I was weak and a rubbish mother, going on and on at me. So many nights, I’d have to listen to his rants. I’d lie there with Sky in my arms, but it was Martin that I was willing to just go back to sleep. After a while, he lost interest completely, in Sky, and in me. And if Sky cried in the night he’d tell me to hurry up and shut him up, instead of telling me to make him wait. Once, he pushed a pillow into his face and shouted at me that he was going to throw Sky out of the window if I didn’t stop him crying.”
I sat with my mouth hanging open, lost for words.
“Want another biscuit?” Catherine pushed the plate towards me, and for some reason we both burst out laughing.
I shook my head. “I’ve kind of lost my appetite.”
Catherine leaned back on the sofa. “I knew he was seeing Lindsay, by then, of course. In a way, it was a kind of relief. At least it meant he’d leave me alone. Some nights, he didn’t come back at all, and although I knew he was with her, I’d be glad.”
“Who’s Lindsay?”
“His girlfriend. He was seeing her behind my back. Pretty much the whole time, as it happens. She used to go to the Pools Complex, when he worked there. She’s a dancer.”
A memory formed in my mind of a young slim blonde woman, dressed in a neon pink leotard and Spandex tights, a woman I’d seen going in and out of the dance studio at the pool a few times, when I’d been swimming there. Then I saw Martin, leaning up against the wall next to her, in his shorts and flip-flops, his hand on her arm.
“Is she very petite? Slim, with long blonde hair?”
“Yes. Well, she’s not blonde anymore, I don’t think – more like mousy brown. Not that I’ve seen her for years. But yes, she was very pretty – and tiny too. Why?”
“I may know who she is,” I said. “I remember him chatting to a dancer at the pool one time.”
Catherine shrugged and sipped her tea. “She did me a favour. I knew he didn’t want me anymore. He just didn’t want anyone else to have me either. And I think he decided that with Sky in tow, that wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon.”
“But...” I cast my mind back to our Skype call. “I thought you said that you were pregnant again? And that he... well, made you lose it?”
Catherine nodded. “Yes. That wasn’t the end of things between us. It should have been. I should have just left him then, of course. And for a while, I did. I took Sky to my mum’s and we stayed there for over a year. But then Martin came crawling back on his hands and knees and begged me to go back with him. He’d obviously fallen out with her, although I couldn’t see that at the time. He just said he’d left her, that she didn’t hold a candle to me, that he missed me and missed Sky too, that he wanted to be a proper dad to him. He said he couldn’t stand being apart from us.
“I was pretty torn. Everything was good at my mum’s. We were settled. Sky was going to a local nursery for a couple of mornings. I’d got myself a PA job at a small ad agency in Saffron Walden and they were really good about me taking time off when I needed, and so I was even getting a bit of acting work here and there. I often look back now, and wonder why I listened to him. Although I doubt if he’d have given up, not until he’d got his way.”
“Probably not,” I agreed.
“I think I just had this hope that he would be a good dad to Sky. I wanted him to want him, you know? Deep down, I couldn’t bear the rejection. Of Sky, not of me. I don’t think I ever really understood or accepted that a man could just not want to know his own son. I wanted to give him a chance to do that – and to give Sky the chance to have a dad. Especially as I’d just lost mine.”
“Your dad died?”
Catherine nodded. “Yes. You remember he had that stroke? On your birthday that time?”
I nodded. How could I forget? If her dad hadn’t had a stroke that day, Catherine would never have left me alone with Martin and a bowl of 100 per cent proof rum and vodka punch. Not that I blamed Catherine’s father, I silently emphasised, to make it clear to her dad, who might now be reading my thoughts from his almighty perch in the afterlife.
“Well, he got a chest infection the following winter and then it turned into pneumonia. He died not long after Sky was born.”
I took her hand. “I’m so sorry, Cath. You had all that to deal with too?”
She nodded. “I suppose I was missing him. I was desperate for male hugs and attention. You know? Like you were, after you lost your dad.”
I nodded, touched that she remembered stuff like that about me, stuff that we’d talked ab
out such a long time ago.
“And it made it seem all the more important that Sky had a dad.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “I did worry about that with Helena, that history was repeating itself, with absent fathers being the common theme. I’d missed my dad so much. Growing up without him had left such a hole in my life. And here I was, raising her without one, too.”
Catherine nodded. “Well, you did the right thing, I can tell you. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if you’d told him at the time. The two of us both...” she trailed off. She was silent for a moment and I was going to say something about it, about what it would have been like if I had told Martin about Helena, about my decision not to. But I could see that, even though she’d referred to that date more than once, Catherine was still not entirely comfortable with the subject of Helena’s conception.
Catherine sensed what I was about to say and quickly carried on. “So we moved back to Cambridge, in with him again. And then for quite a long time, it was all okay. He was good to Sky. He’d buy him toys and presents quite often, and take him to the park. He’d take him to nursery and pick him up, too, when I had to work. He’d left his job at the Complex, for some reason that wasn’t entirely clear, but I didn’t press him about it. Why rock the boat, right, when things were going so well? So, for a while he was at home when he wasn’t coaching, and he would look after Sky while I went to work. But it was always as though he was doing me a favour. When he told me about their day, it always felt like he was saying, ‘Look. Look at me and how well I’ve looked after your son’. He never seemed to have bonded with Sky; he never laughed at the funny things he did or said. He never got just how cute and funny and, well, how...”
“Unique,” I said.
“Yes, that’s it. How unique he was. I’d take Sky to play with his little friends and I’d notice how, when they said something cute, their mum and dad would look at each other and smile, and I couldn’t help but think to myself that Martin never did that. He was never proud of him in any way. He didn’t love him the way that a dad should love his child. It was always as though Sky was mine and not his.
“At first, I buried it. Ignored it. Like I said, why rock the boat? It was hard to put my finger on; I didn’t know what to say. He was looking after him while I was at work, after all. I thought to myself that some dads would object to that, being at home with the kid while his partner worked. I know my dad would have done. But as soon as I was home, he’d let me do everything for Sky. He would just hand him over and show no interest in him. It just felt like he was the babysitter, rather than his dad.
“Eventually, I mentioned it to him, asked him if he felt he’d bonded with Sky. He said he didn’t know. And then he said, ‘probably not.’ And then he said, what did I expect after I’d taken Sky away from him for a year? He blamed me! When I tried to point out that he was the one who had gone off with Lindsay, he said that I’d driven him away. It was as though everything had been my fault. He’d forgotten about all the apologies and the gifts and the effort he’d put into trying to get me back again, after I’d moved to my mum’s. It was as though he’d re-written history and everything that had happened between us. And it was now all down to me and my selfishness. Or Sky’s ‘whinging’ when he was a baby, and how I’d made him that way: a spoiled brat. That’s what he said.
“It went on like that for a while. For a few years, actually.” She sighed and shook her head. “With him being mostly okay, and wanting me, but just not really being that ‘into’ Sky. It really hurt. And as Sky got bigger, he started to pick on him. Everything he said or did.” She looked up. “Nothing he did was right. He’d come in from the garden and his shoes were muddy, he’d get shouted at. At the age of three or four! Or he’d drop clothes on the floor...
“Helena still does that,” I smiled.
“I know. So does Sky,” she confessed. “But he was only little. He’d get a real rollicking. It was so wrong.” She put her head in her hands. I patted her shoulder and she looked up again. “I feel so guilty. He was like your stepdad. Exactly like him. A bastard.”
I nodded. “I know how Sky must have felt. It’s as if you are just no good as a person. Like you are taking up space in the house. You’re literally a waste of space.”
“That’s how it felt,” Catherine said. “As if he just didn’t want Sky around. As if he wished he hadn’t been born. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know how to stand up to him. As always, he made out that I was the problem, that I was spoiling Sky, making him into a ‘wuss’. That’s what he said. But there was no proper parenting from him. It wasn’t even as if he tried to teach him anything or show me the right way to discipline a child. I knew that shouting like that wasn’t the way. And I knew that wasn’t how my dad had been with me, either.
“And then I found out I was pregnant again. I worried that he wouldn’t want it, and I started thinking, for the first time, about how I was going to leave. I started planning it, taking bits and pieces to my mum’s. Toys of Sky’s mainly, and some of my clothes. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the baby. But then, one day, I did.”
“Was he angry?” I asked.
“No. Not at first. He didn’t say much. And he even seemed to feel quite sorry for me. It was a difficult pregnancy, you see.”
“Were you sick? I was like that with Helena,” I said. “I could barely get out of bed for weeks.”
“Not sick, no. I was spotting. Bleeding. A lot. Every time it happened I’d be terrified I was losing the baby. He seemed to realise how scared I was, and I suppose it made him feel good, and in control. He’d make me lie down and he’d do and say all the right things. I suppose it wasn’t a secure pregnancy. I didn’t feel sick at all, so maybe the hormones weren’t that strong. I don’t know. Maybe I would have lost it anyway. But it seemed to be going okay. Until...”
“Until what? What did he do?”
“I was around twelve weeks gone and I hadn’t had any bleeding for ages. Not for a few weeks, in fact. I honestly think that, while he thought I was going to lose the baby, he made an effort to be nice to me. He was just waiting for the miscarriage to happen. And he truly felt sorry for me, because he could see how much I wanted the baby. But then when I seemed to be blooming and things were getting better, the bleeding had stopped and I got back to myself again, he obviously felt less in control of the situation. He pretended to be happy about the baby, but I could see that the mask had slipped. One day, we were out at a restaurant. I say a restaurant; it was just Pizza Hut or something. Sky was being fussy about his food, saying he wanted icecream and refusing to eat his chicken nuggets. Then he threw one on the floor. Martin got mad and slapped him round the head. I was so shocked. I stood up and grabbed Sky and I yelled at Martin to leave him alone. We left the restaurant without paying – Martin had to go back and sort it out later – and he said nothing all the way home. But later on, he started laying into me about it, telling me how I’d humiliated him in public...”
“Even though what he did was against the law!”
“I know. I could have had him arrested. And there were witnesses. Although, I don’t think anyone else saw him hit Sky, to be honest. But the whole restaurant turned and looked when I screamed at Martin. He didn’t do or say anything back. He just wanted to get out of there with the minimum fuss. But I knew he was angry. I’d showed him up, he said. And then later, he went crazy. He grabbed me by the hair and punched me in the stomach. Hard.”
“In front of Sky?”
Catherine nodded. “Yes. In front of Sky. He witnessed the whole argument. He was hysterical. But Martin didn’t care. The next day the bleeding started again, and this time I had really bad period pains. Only, they weren’t period pains, of course; they were contractions. The pain got so bad that I had to go into hospital. They put me on a morphine drip, but I lost the baby. Well, gave birth to it. The pain was exactly the same as it was when I had Sky.
“They said there was nothing the
y could do. There isn’t anything you can do, in fact. If you’re going to lose a baby, it will just happen. They told me all the statistics, of course, about how it’s way more common than people realise, and that one in three pregnancies ends in miscarriage. I thought to myself, ‘Well, one in three pregnancies doesn’t end with a punch to the stomach. Add that to your statistics.’ But I didn’t bother telling them what he’d done. I was too upset, and I knew that they wouldn’t be able to prove it was what caused it.”
“So what did Martin do then?”
“He was mortified. Remember how he was when he gave me that black eye?” I nodded. “He went right back to being the model partner. Doing everything round the house. Looking after Sky. The shouting stopped, and he made a real effort. But it was too late by then. That was the turning point for me. My ‘aha’ moment. My epiphany. The moment he killed my baby, he was dead to me and he knew it. It didn’t matter how nice he was; we both knew that it was only a matter of time before we would separate. Of course, I didn’t have the energy to do anything for a while. It took all the strength I had just to look after Sky and get through each day. I’d wait ‘til Sky was at nursery and Martin was at work and I’d just go to bed and cry.”
I put my hand on Catherine’s and held it tight. I was crying openly by now, as was she. She squeezed my hand back and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “That went on for a few months. Martin started off by trying to help. When we spoke, he referred to it as ‘my miscarriage’, as though it was just something that happened to me, and nothing to do with him. But he tried to make things up to me and didn’t pressure me, or start a fight, when I gave him the cold shoulder, he just kept out of my way. He gradually drifted away and left me to it. I knew he was seeing Lindsay again. I waited for him to be the one to say it, that he wanted to be with her, and not me. I knew his pride wouldn’t let me leave him again. It was as if we both knew what needed to happen. So I stayed for almost a year, before he asked me to move out.”