by Lee, Jane
I was gutted. It was 1am when Bob came in. I told him he had ruined the day and, before he could start making excuses for where he had been, I told him I was still going to the Ministry of Sound. I told him he could come if he wanted to and he agreed. I was so angry but didn’t want the day to be a complete disaster so we set off. I had bought him an Armani suit for the occasion and had even paid for us to be VIPs.
We didn’t get there until 4.30am because Bob couldn’t find the place. I was fuming. This day should have been one of our best but it was turning out to be the worst. Even so, when we got inside, my mood improved. The atmosphere was good and we both started to smile for the first time that day. We went into one of the VIP rooms and it was packed out and pumping.
Some bloke then started eyeing Bob up. ‘Look at him, Bob,’ I said, pointing to the bloke. ‘He fancies you.’ We both laughed and moved away and stood in between two dance stands by the fire exit, as I liked to have my back to the wall so I could see everything that was happening. I told Bob to go and get us a drink while I danced to the music and started to have a lovely time at last. The heat in the club was overwhelming and I felt like I was going to faint. A couple of blokes asked me to dance but I told them, ‘No, thank you.’ I wasn’t like that. Bob was my fella, for better or worse.
It had been nearly an hour and Bob was still not back. It was packed and I knew the bar was busy but, even so, I was thinking, Where is he? There was a group of Bosnians beside me and one of the girls in the group offered me a drink. I think she could see I was struggling with the heat. But I refused, not knowing who they were. I mean, I didn’t want to accept a spiked drink. You couldn’t be too careful. She was in a group of about five girls and five blokes. I started to go giddy and feel faint again but they started clapping and it helped snap me out of it. Finally – after an hour and a half – Bob came back with vodka and it cooled me down. We had started to dance together when a man jumped down from a platform suspended above us and started dancing along with us. At least, I thought he was dancing with us but then I realised he was dancing with Bob and the way he was doing it was very sexual.
‘Here’s another bloke who fancies you, Bob,’ I shouted above the music. Bob just laughed but I wasn’t finding it funny by then. I was getting embarrassed so I told Bob to tell the bloke he was straight and was with me. But, again, Bob just laughed. So I told the bloke myself. ‘I hope you’re not trying to pull my man. He’s with me,’ I said politely. Well, he just moved closer to Bob, gave it a bit more dirty dancing and I exploded. I grabbed the man around the throat and ran him back to the dance platform, where he crumpled to the floor.
‘Fuck off, you little poof,’ I said and left him there in a heap on the floor. I have nothing against gays – I believe in live and let live – but I didn’t want anyone trampling on my territory. When I got back to Bob, he was laughing.
‘I gave you the hump there, didn’t I?’ he said
I told him that fighting off other women would make me proud but fighting a man off didn’t amuse me. Then I saw them all coming. This man I had just flattened was with the group that had offered me the drink and now they were signalling to another man on the opposite stage and he was signalling another group. I knew it was going to kick off. I told Bob to shut his mouth as I had bigger problems now. It looked like half the club was with this guy but I could tell that the man on the other dance platform was the main man. By now everyone was looking at me and pointing. So I went to the main man. I’d got a knife down the back of my jeans and I screamed, ‘If today’s the day I die, it’s a good day to die,’ and I waited for his reaction. I knew that, if it went off, I was going to lose this one. There were too many of them but I’d take a few of them with me. The man signalled something to the three blokes who were homing in on me and they turned around and grabbed the bloke who had been trying to pull Bob and brought him to me. The man said he didn’t know Bob was with me and I accepted his apology. I had no choice really.
It was now 6am and everyone went back to dancing. I was making out I was having the time of my life but I wasn’t really. I didn’t want to be there but I couldn’t lose face so we stayed for the last hour. But I was gutted that Bob had put me in that position. All he’d had to do was say he was straight and with his missus but he hadn’t. He had ruined everything again. What kind of man would do that to his woman? I just didn’t understand.
When we left that morning, the men and women in the group I’d had the encounters with hugged and kissed me as we said our goodbyes. I danced out of there, lying, because I said I had had the time of my life but that was so far from the truth.
When we reached the car, I went mad at Bob. I asked him if he was gay. He said he wasn’t but I had seen in films that gays attract gays and, believe me, they were all Bob had attracted in the two and a half hours we were there. I couldn’t believe what Bob was doing to my head and, when we got home, I made him sleep on the settee.
When I told Toni about our big night out, she couldn’t stop laughing. ‘Do you think my Bob is gay?’ I asked.
‘No way, Jane,’ she said. ‘It was just one of those things. Don’t worry about it.’
After a few days Bob and I were back on speaking terms. But I was starting to wonder about our relationship and all the stuff that had happened. Debts, coke and gays. None of it was right. Then one night I was waiting for Bob when Toni turned up. She’d got on a mini-skirt, no knickers and she was laughing about it. I didn’t find it funny.
‘What are you coming round here like that for,’ I asked her. ‘If my Bob was home and he had looked at you like that I would have gone mad.’
She knew he wasn’t in and I wondered how? He was a couple of hours late so, if anything, she should have expected him to be in. I told her to go and never to come back dressed like that again. She promised she would never do me wrong but then she had previously told me she went with other men to get money. I said, ‘You do your own family wrong, girl.’ I knew now I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. And yet I still had to trust that Bob wouldn’t cheat on me with Toni, although I was growing more and more suspicious.
But it came to a head when she was over some time later, crying her eyes out after a row with her fella. At first, she said she wanted him to move out because she couldn’t stand being with him. But it was Bob who stood up for her and said that all this rowing was not fair on Toni. He suggested that her bloke Steve should move in with us, in the spare room, for a few days so that she could get some peace and quiet. ‘Are you mad, Bob?’ I shouted. ‘Why would I let her man come and stay here? She wouldn’t be able to come round here herself and I would never see her.’
There was something not right going on here but for some days I just couldn’t see what it was. Then the penny dropped and I became convinced he was seeing Toni behind my back and that they had both been playing me for a mug. How could I have been such a fool? I confronted Bob, but he denied it. ‘I have spent every penny I had on you and this house!’ I screamed, knowing I had made the biggest mistake of my life. After my endless wars, I thought I’d at last found peace with this man. What a fucking joke that was now. A sad, sad joke. ‘I’m fucked now, Bob, because I have put everything into our relationship,’ I said. I made him write out a receipt for £30,000 so that he couldn’t sell the house without paying me back what I had put in. I just didn’t know what else to do.
I found out that Bob still hadn’t paid any of the bills. I lost it, big style, got a sledgehammer from the garden shed and I smashed his truck to pieces. I smashed every window, every door, every light, everything. He was just lucky I didn’t take the hammer to him because I had never felt like doing anyone more in my life. When I had destroyed his truck, I went back in the house, gasping for breath, a cold fury in my eyes and an aching in my heart.
‘Leave now, Bob.’ I held the heavy hammer tight. ‘Leave now,’ I repeated, ‘before I do something we will both regret.’ And, for the first time in a long time, Bob did the righ
t thing. He even closed the door behind him as he left. I slumped onto the settee. It was the worst moment of my life. I looked up to the heavens with tears in my eyes and thought about my Matt – a real man – and wondered what I was going to do now. I was so unhappy and alone. My dreams had become nightmares, my happiness had turned to sadness and my love had become shame. I couldn’t cope. I was losing this battle for happiness with every beat of my heart.
I went to bed and that’s where I stayed for the next few weeks. Thank God for my son. He looked after me, brought me food and walked my dogs. I was an emotional wreck. In all my life I had never been so low. I was like a zombie, just lying in bed with my two dogs and the cats around me. My John came every day and kept begging me to snap out of it. ‘This isn’t you, Mum,’ he would say. ‘Pull yourself out of it and come back home. Don’t be like this, Mum.’
But I just couldn’t move. I was so wrapped up in my own misery. My poor boy had never seen me like that before and it frightened him. He kept saying everything would be OK but he didn’t know what was wrong with me because I couldn’t open up to him. He was my boy and I couldn’t tell him about Bob. I was too ashamed. As parents, we protect our kids. I didn’t want to drown him in my misery. I just kept saying, ‘I’ll be OK.’ But I was far from OK. A woman can only take so much.
I was so unhappy, my mind played tricks on me. Was it me? Was Bob really that bad? I had second thoughts and I texted him dozens of times but he blanked me. I begged him to get off the drugs and that, despite everything I’d told him, we might still be able to work at it. I asked his dad to give him my messages and I sent flowers, chocolates and even bottles of champagne round to his mum to say sorry for the position we had put them in. He had moved back in with them and they were caught in the middle. And his dad was so lovely, always keeping hold of the hope, like me, that Bob would get off the drugs. I knew, in my head, it was over but, in my heart, I was still hoping. Love had crippled me and Bob was blanking me.
I kept phoning Toni. I needed a friend. I needed her to come and tell me everything was going to be OK. But she never came. She always had an excuse and, before long, she started to blank my calls altogether. My boy told me daily it was going to be OK but I couldn’t tell him what a mess I was in. I just couldn’t. I started to cry and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop thinking about Matt. Oh, what have I done? I thought. I had been so angry with Matt since he had been killed and now I needed him more than I’d ever needed him in my life. My poor Matt, I thought. Shot dead at 42. The tears came and I couldn’t stop crying. I hadn’t cried in years. Well, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried.
I kept texting Toni and told her I thought I had finally started to grieve for Matt because I couldn’t stop crying and thinking about him. My eyes looked like I’d been punched, they were so swollen. Toni was always crying and I texted her that I now knew she was just pretending, as she was always dolled up and there was no way she would look the way she did if she had been crying for real. At last, I texted that I was going to drive round to show her my face. I couldn’t believe the way I was. I had never been like this before, ever. Still dressed in my pyjamas, I jumped into my car and drove to hers. I beeped her when I arrived but her daughter came out and said she wasn’t in. I just drove back home and got back into bed. I was gutted. She could have texted me back if she wasn’t going to be there.
Then, out of the blue, something told me to get up and sort myself out. I told myself that this wasn’t fair on my John. He should be out enjoying his life and not worrying and looking after me. When he came round the next day, I was up and he smiled the loving smile I didn’t deserve and gave me a big hug. My boy was the best son any mother could have. Despite everything I’d done and put him through, he never judged me, never doubted me and he was always there for me, no matter what. I love you so much, John. You always make me so proud.
I was up now and I took the dogs down to the river for a walk. I had my own spot on the bank where I’d go to find peace. I’d made a little opening to get away from the path and down the bank to the river’s edge. I had two rottweilers and I needed both to pull me back up again because the drop was so steep. This was my place of sanctuary, where my dogs and I went for solitude. I loved it.
I was back to being me and, once more, I was pissed off with Toni. Where was she when I needed her? So I texted her yet again and she still ignored me. This time, though, I wasn’t crying but boiling with rage. I thought, Some best friend. Now I’d had enough. I hadn’t heard from her or Bob. I went to her house with a can of black spray paint and sprayed ‘wrong ’un’ and ‘slag’ across the windows.
She soon came out. ‘What the fuck is your game?’
‘What the fuck is my game? You cheeky slag,’ I replied, reaching into my motor for my Maglite torch – the same type used by the police. It was massive. I grabbed it, jumped away from the car and smashed it down onto her head as hard as I could. ‘That’s for not answering your phone, slag!’ I screamed as she ran into her house clutching her head. ‘If I find out you have done me wrong, you will be a dead whore walking,’ I said as she disappeared.
I knew something wasn’t right and, when Bob knocked on my door not an hour later, all the pieces finally fell into place. I had been fooling myself for too long but those days were now over. After he and his family had dropped out of sight, he was suddenly back on the scene, less than an hour after I’d done Toni, asking to come back. I took him and the dogs to the special place by the river and asked him straight out if he had done me wrong with Toni.
‘No way, Janie,’ he said, looking pleadingly at me. But I was not convinced. I pushed him in the river and headed back to Toni’s place. Steve claimed she had left him but I knew he was talking bollocks so I went home, got another tin of paint – yellow this time – and wrote on a big board opposite her flat, ‘Toni fucks, sucks and grasses anyone for money.’
When Steve came out, I shouted from across the road, ‘She’s a dead whore walking. All she’s got is time.’
He shouted, ‘Oh yeah?’ and started walking towards me. ‘I’m going to fucking do you, you bitch.’ He was 20 stone of fat and yet I had really liked him until this point. I pulled out the Maglite again and went for him.
‘Come on then,’ I shouted as I raised the torch above my head. All of a sudden, he wasn’t so brave.
He stopped, turned around and shouted out to where I knew Toni was cowering inside, ‘She’s got a weapon. Call the police.’
‘Call all your fucking gangster mates as well if you think it will stop me!’ I screamed. ‘She has been sleeping with my man and I’m going to do her. You had better get your whore insured for a lot of money and then you should fuck off on holiday if you know what’s good for you.’ A new calm had come over me. ‘I won’t be taking any prisoners. All that whore has got left is time,’ I told him as I left.
His brow furrowed when I said that. He understood what I meant, all right.
14
REVENGE
The police would have to shoot me to try to save them and we would all be gone.
My life had just come to an end. Whatever time I had left was going to be used to prepare for my son’s future and then I was going to send Bob and Toni straight to hell. He was a dead man walking. She was a dead whore walking. And I was a dead warrior walking because I was going with them. I knew it was over. Everything around me felt evil. Having been a woman with morals, who valued loyalty and honour, I was crushed beyond belief. My moral code wouldn’t let me accept what had happened. My honour wouldn’t let me allow this to go unanswered and my loyalty now belonged to my Matt, and this was when I began to grieve for him properly.
I couldn’t deal with the evil that came to me and I gave myself two more months in this world to make things right for my son and to say goodbye to my loved ones. The two were going to hell and then the heavens would open up to claim their warrior queen. I knew how I was going to die. I was going to be shot by the police again but this tim
e they would have to kill me to try to save the traitors. I was going to die with my sword in my hand, taking back my honour and the copper who shot me would be a hero. He wouldn’t hear the truth of why I was doing what was doing until I had gone, and I would have no regrets.
I now missed Matt so much and felt so guilty at the anger I had once had for him. I realised now that he had been the only true love of my life. He had never done me wrong. He was just trying to protect me from the pain I would have felt knowing he had loved others when I didn’t want him. Well, I had wanted him. I just couldn’t cope with him as a person and it was my choice to let him go.
All the good memories and love came flooding back and all I wanted now was to be with my Matt again. My true, undying love. I knew he was on the other side waiting for me and wanting me and I had never wanted anything more in my life than to be with him now. And I was going to be with him. I’d had enough of this world. People I loved had let me down. I’d never done anything to anyone who didn’t deserve it, yet all I seemed to attract were wrong ’uns. I was blessed to have a son with the same morals and value for honour and loyalty as me. It was breaking my heart to think of leaving him but he was 25 now and it was time for me to go.
I took John for lunch to a country pub in Epping, where we had a beautiful day. We took photos of each other and then I told him it was time to meet his real dad. At first he said, ‘No way,’ but I said, ‘I’ve had you for twenty-five years and it’s time for you to meet him.’ I didn’t want to leave this world without making things right. I told John he had no choice and that he was meeting him whether he liked it or not. I think he wanted to meet him but, out of loyalty to me, he felt he couldn’t. But this wasn’t about me anymore. This was about him and his future and he accepted that.
We had a three-course meal at the pub, then walked into a field nearby where a big oak tree had fallen. We climbed and played like a couple of teenagers and laughed. We just enjoyed each other’s company. How my son was the best thing in my life and I knew Jamie would be just as proud as me when he met him. I got in touch with Jamie’s sister and left her a letter for Jamie with a photo of John and his telephone number. I put in the letter that I had never asked him for anything but that, if anything ever happened to me, John would need to know his family.