by Annie Murray
As the week passed, Joanne gradually learned more about the other women in the house. Gina, the prettiest and closest to her age, was always the most forthcoming. If they met in the kitchen she was always full of chat, but Joanne soon learned not to trust her.
‘Gina’s been in and out of here,’ Marcia warned her. ‘I wouldn’t believe everything she says. To be honest with you, we’re in the last stages of having those boys taken into care. Gina looks sunny, but her own background was a nightmare – and the dad’s more of the same. The trouble is she has no idea what normal behaviour is, bless her.’
Gina would relate with relish some of the injuries that Benny, her husband, ten years her senior, had inflicted on her.
‘The first time I come here – that was when he blacked both my eyes – you should’ve seen me; like summat out of the Black and White Minstrels! That’s ’cos my nose was broke as well; and I had a broken rib or two, but you couldn’t see that. Then there was the time he broke my jaw – see here, I’ve got wire in here, but they made a lovely job of it. I had Jase as a baby then, and Benny couldn’t stand him crying . . . This was before he got systematic about it – I mean, this time, with the claw hammer: he just worked his way along . . .’
All this told while frying bacon. Benny was a big softie really, she assured everyone. It was only she who understood him. Gina completely horrified Joanne, and she found herself avoiding conversation with her.
She never really worked Maeve out, and in any case she was gone within a few days. Devoutly Catholic, she managed to give off an air of self-righteousness while also blaming herself for all that had happened. Her daughters looked cowed and terrified, but Joanne never worked out where the truth lay there. She was replaced by an older lady called Linda, who seemed very depressed and just said she couldn’t stand any more. Her children were grown-up. She’d had enough.
Of the other two, it was Doreen for whom her heart bled. Joanne gradually learned, both from Marcia and from Doreen herself when she occasionally stopped and spoke, that the woman was forty-five and had seven sons. Her husband had been violent all through their marriage, but at any backchat from her or attempts to leave him he had immediately got her pregnant again, so that she didn’t feel she could desert the family. Now the boys had grown up, and after their education in violence from their father, the older ones had started setting about their mother as well. Doreen had at last acted on repeated advice from social workers and health visitors to get out of there and try to save Danny, the youngest, from going the same way. Now she lived in terror of her husband finding her. Joanne could hardly take in the pain, fear and heartbreak that this gently-spoken woman had suffered.
As for Mariam, she really did not speak English. She had been brought over as a bride from Bangladesh by a man who had already twice tried to kill her by throttling her. She was fifteen years old.
Joanne found she longed to be out, to do something normal.
One afternoon she decided to try getting on the bus into town. She asked Marcia’s permission, and Marcia told her it was absolutely up to her, to assess her own risks. Where could be the harm? Joanne reasoned. Dave was the one person she really couldn’t risk running into, and he would not be in town on a workday afternoon.
All the same, sitting on the bus as it crawled along the Hagley Road, she was surprised at how nervous and strange she felt. It reminded her of when she first had Amy, coming out of the hospital as if to a world that had changed. Whereas of course it was she who had changed. It felt today as if everyone was staring at her.
She still had most of the money she had brought with her. Her faded old jeans, which she lived in, were all in holes, and Amy needed one or two things. Joanne had only been able to bring a small amount from home.
‘We’ll go and have a look in Mothercare,’ she whispered to Amy, calming her own nerves by her chatter. ‘And we’ll go to the Bull Ring, and then Mommy and Amy might go and get a drink – would you like that?’
Amy nodded, solemnly. Since they had left home she was not talking as much as she had been and she seldom smiled. This tore at Joanne’s heart. One thing she noticed, though, was that Amy never asked after Dave. She seemed to accept that wherever Joanne was, was home.
Once they were off the bus she unfolded Amy’s buggy and pushed her round the shops. It was overcast, but thankfully not raining. They went into Mothercare and she let Amy choose some little trousers and a top to go with them. She also needed some underwear for Amy and for herself, which she decided to see if she could get in the Rag Market, and also look for a cheap pair of jeans. She was just pushing Amy down the ramp by St Martin’s Church when someone gently squeezed her arm. Joanne started violently.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump – only I said hello twice!’
It was Sooky, also pushing a buggy with Priya in it. Amy was squeaking with excitement, showing more animation than she had in days. She and Priya reached out their hands to each other.
‘Oh!’ Joanne laid a hand on her pounding chest. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ She took in Sooky’s smiling, friendly face. ‘It’s really nice to see you. Only, I meant to take your number – when the playgroup ended – and I never got it.’
‘But I was looking for you this week,’ Sooky said. ‘You never came.’
‘Has it started again already? Yes, I s’pose it would’ve done.’
Having stopped on the ramp with two buggies, they were clearly irritating people, provoking some forthright comments about standing right in the way, so they moved in against the wall of the church.
‘Were you away?’ Sooky said. ‘We were looking forward to seeing you.’
‘I . . .’ Joanne hesitated. ‘Look, I’ve had to leave home for a bit.’ To her annoyance, tears filled her eyes. What must Sooky think of her? Still, at least she’d left a marriage herself. ‘We had a bit of trouble.’
‘Oh dear.’ Sooky looked really concerned. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah – yeah, I’m okay.’ She wiped her eyes, trying to pull herself together.
‘Tell you what,’ Sooky said. ‘How about a coffee? Then we could have a proper chat. If you’ve got time, that is.’
‘Oh, I’ve got plenty of time.’ Joanne looked up and managed a watery smile. ‘That would be really nice.’
Forty-Five
They went to a bakery with a cafe and settled down with their drinks and squash and currant buns for Amy and Priya. The little girls faced each other, beaming in delight.
Joanne also felt a rush of pleasure. How nice it was, this simple thing, meeting a friend for a chat. Apart from that one snatched coffee with Kieran, she could not remember the last time she’d done something like this. It came home to her again how isolated she had become. Only now could she see the extent to which Dave had controlled her every move. How had she let things get like that? It was as if she had been in a trance. She sat up straight for a moment and took a deep breath, as if throwing off a burden.
‘You look nice,’ she said to Sooky, who was in jeans today, with a black blouse and black jacket. She had a lovely slim figure.
Sooky glanced down at herself, then back at Joanne, smiling in surprise. ‘Oh, thanks!’
‘How d’you decide what to wear every day?’ Joanne asked.
‘What, you mean – oh, whether I wear a Punjabi suit?’ Sooky shrugged. ‘It’s nice and comfortable wearing them round the house. If I’m going out, well, it depends what mood I’m in. That’s all: no big mystery!’ She smiled again.
‘Mind you, when I was younger, Mom always wanted me to wear Indian clothes. If I ever bought anything else, like a denim skirt, she’d be going, “Oh, Hai Rabbai” – that’s like, “Oh my God, what is that you’re wearing?” Every time she says Hai Rabbai she does this.’ Sooky banged her forehead with the heel of her hand. ‘She had a pink mark on her head for a long time, with me around, wanting to wear the latest fashions! But she got used to it in the end. She’s okay with it now.’
Joan
ne laughed. ‘You’re good at taking people off.’
‘Am I? Well, with Mom I’ve seen that enough times!’
Priya was nudging for Sooky’s attention and for a moment they helped the girls tear open their buns. Priya began painstakingly picking out the currants and eating them first, and Amy copied her.
Sooky turned to Joanne and said gently, ‘So d’you want to talk about it?’
Joanne sipped her milky, comforting hot chocolate. It was easy to talk in here, with all the burble of other people around, the selling of cakes and clinking of cups on saucers. And Sooky’s face was so kind and understanding.
‘I keep trying to work it out,’ she said. ‘What’s happened to him – to us. We’ve been together a long while now, Dave and me, and before he’d never’ve raised a finger. He just wasn’t like that. It started after I’d had Amy. I don’t know, maybe I was too wrapped up in her and didn’t give him enough attention.’
She stared ahead of her for a moment.
‘It was all right at first. But he’s got more and more, well, angry and weird – always checking up on me. You know, that day in the park, when we had the little party, Dave was there. I saw him suddenly, across the other side, just staring at us.’
‘Oh yes, I remember!’ Sooky said. ‘I saw him too, but obviously I didn’t know who he was. Is he blond – short hair?’
Joanne nodded, swallowing. ‘Yeah. Once he’d seen me notice him, he went off. Then he kept phoning. At first it was once or twice – then he’d be phoning about once every hour to check what I was doing.’
‘Ooh,’ Sooky looked dismayed. ‘Creepy.’
Joanne nodded. ‘It is creepy. He didn’t like me seeing anyone. Even with my family it’s a bit difficult, but at least he will come and see them, and he’s nice as pie to them. He wants them to think well of him, and they all think the sun shines out of him. But anyone else . . . It was as if I’d committed a crime if I spoke to anyone. God!’ She rolled her eyes, remembering. ‘What finally set him was off was that we ran into Kieran – just out shopping. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know him, so we had a chat, but when we got home . . . he went mad. He accused me of having an affair with Kieran. He thought I was covering up the fact that there was a man at the toddler group.’
‘Does he hit you?’ Sooky asked.
Joanne nodded, looking down, blushing in shame. She was glad to be asked in a matter-of-fact way, but it was a hard thing to admit.
‘More and more. But I would’ve put up with that if . . .’ She looked into Sooky’s eyes, needing some kind of assurance. ‘It was when I saw him start on Amy. I was scared he was really going to hurt her.’
Her eyes filled then and she couldn’t go on for a minute. Then she told Sooky what had happened.
‘Oh, my goodness,’ Sooky exclaimed, her dark eyes full of concern. ‘Oh, you did the right thing. It was the same for me. I found Jaz with Priya, and I knew things weren’t right. It was sex with him – he never hit her or anything. You can put up with things for yourself, even though that’s not right either, is it? But . . .’
She turned, looking upset, and stroked Priya’s glossy head. The little girls were making faces at each other and giggling.
Sooky went on, ‘Even my mom, who’s the most traditional person ever about marriage, supported me over that. But then Jaz and I hardly knew each other. What about you?’
Sooky let Joanne talk and talk. She told Sooky all about the refuge and the other women there, and about how she and Dave met as teenagers.
‘I suppose life hasn’t turned out for him how he wanted,’ she said. ‘He had high hopes – he was going to be a famous footballer.’
‘That’s a big thing to have snatched away from you,’ Sooky said.
‘Yes, but he seemed to get over it quickly. He’s always had work with his dad’s little firm and has done well. It’s his business now, basically, even though some of the blokes there are much older than him. He’s got a good life: a wife and child . . .’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know. Anyway, I’m talking your hind leg off. And I’m fed up of thinking about it all! Tell me more about your marriage?’
Sooky told her briefly what had happened with Jaz.
‘That sounds awful,’ Joanne said. ‘And what with your mom, and everything. But I don’t really get that: you just said she supported you?’
‘I know, I don’t really get it, either.’ Sooky fiddled with her teaspoon, turning it round in the cup. ‘I think she’s just got so many things pulling her in different directions – our religion, and what people will say in the community because divorce is so shameful. The thing is, she knew it was wrong – what Jaz did – absolutely wrong, but somehow she wishes it hadn’t ended the marriage . . . Maybe she thinks I should have been able to stop it, I don’t know. She hasn’t got much confidence; she doesn’t speak English and she hasn’t ever really learned to read much even in our language. She comes from a village in India where things change a lot more slowly, and she’s trying to adapt to everything being different from how she expected. She thought everything would be so much better for all of us – and of course in lots of ways it is. But bad things still happen. And I think she does understand in a way; she’s quite kind-hearted really, my mom, she’s just a bit confused and stuck in her ways.’
‘Oh, tell me about it. You should meet mine! That’s if she ever speaks to me again.’
Their eyes met and suddenly they were laughing at the sheer awful complicatedness of everything. They couldn’t seem to stop.
‘The thing about my mom is,’ Joanne managed to say at last, ‘we’ve only just discovered she’s been addicted to Valium for the past twenty years and nobody knew!’
‘But,’ Sooky’s expression sobered quickly, ‘that’s awful – what about your dad?’
‘He didn’t notice.’
Sooky considered this. ‘I don’t think my dad would’ve noticed, either.’
At this, they both burst into laughter again. Amy and Priya stared at their mothers, put their heads back and giggled gleefully, even though they didn’t know what the joke was.
‘That’s not funny!’ Joanne managed to splutter, tears running down her cheeks.
‘I know.’ Sooky agreed between outbursts of laughter.
Every time they looked at each other, they set each other off again. Joanne felt as if weeks of tension were draining out of her in this laughter about things that realistically weren’t in the least funny. At last they managed to control themselves and wiped their eyes.
‘Oh,’ Joanne said, feeling suddenly limp, ‘I feel better for that. Shall we have another drink?’
While Joanne went to the counter, Sooky reached into her bag and found a spiral-bound notebook, a pen and a pencil. She gave some sheets to the girls to doodle on.
‘Great!’ Joanne said when she came back. ‘That’ll keep them quiet for a bit. I’ve got nothing with me at all.’
‘I’d thought I might go to the Central Library,’ Sooky said. ‘Make a few notes – although I’m not sure what about. Did I tell you, I’m going to start a degree at the Poly next term?’
‘No – that’s fantastic! You said you were thinking about it. What about getting married, though? Are your mom and dad okay with it?’
‘Yeah, Mom’s okay with it, for now anyway. She’ll look after Priya while I’m there – it’s part-time, you see. If anyone comes along for marriage – well, we’ll see. They’re not pushing it too hard at the moment, not after the last one.’
Joanne was surprised by the stab of envy she felt, at the thought of those possibilities opening out, of a bigger life. ‘That’s so good. I wish I could do something like that.’
‘Maybe you could?’
‘I haven’t even got A-levels. And my mom certainly wouldn’t help, not like yours. She doesn’t see the point of all that. And she can hardly look after herself at the moment.’
‘No, I know I’m lucky like that.’ Sooky put her head on one side. ‘What will you do, d’you think
? Will you go back to him?’
Joanne knew she had been avoiding this question. So far it had been easier to remain in limbo, waiting – as if fate or God or a social worker would sort it out for her. In her heart of hearts she knew she had never seriously considered anything else. In the end she would go back; somehow things would get better, and she and Dave would go on much as they had before. That was what she had always assumed, and she couldn’t imagine much else.
But there were other things, other lives she might have: A-levels, work. She could be a single parent – other people managed. It felt exciting and very frightening, all at once. Amy’s piece of paper drifted down by her feet and she bent to pick it up, then looked up at Sooky.
‘I really don’t know,’ she said.
By the time they parted Joanne felt cheered and heartened.
‘It’s been so nice to get out for a bit,’ she said, as she and Sooky headed along New Street. She hadn’t done all her shopping, but this had been much better.
‘I can imagine,’ Sooky said. ‘It must be really hard in there.’
‘The noise is the worst thing,’ Joanne said.
‘Look,’ Sooky said shyly, ‘I know you can’t come to the toddler group at the moment. I won’t be able to, either, with my course starting. Most of the classes are on a Tuesday. But d’you want to meet up again?’
‘Oh yes, I’d love to,’ Joanne smiled. ‘It’s been really nice.’
‘What shall I tell them: Tess and Kieran and everyone, if I see them?’
‘Oh, I don’t know – tell them I’ve had to go away for a bit. That my mom’s ill or something.’ She hesitated. ‘No, that’s silly. You might as well tell them the truth.’
They stopped, needing to part for different buses.
‘See you next week?’ Sooky said. ‘Same time, same place?’