‘Look, Rose, you must understand Bianca and I need more room. There’ll be a baby here soon. You’ll have to move back to your parents’ place and let us move into my house. I am still paying the mortgage after all, and now rent on this tiny flat.’
His tone sounded reasonable, unless you listened to the words.
‘Why, Eddie,’ I gave a tinkling laugh. ‘How nice to speak to you after all this time. I think I just hallucinated. You sound pleasant, even reasonable, but that’s not who you are any more. Hell will freeze over before I give you anything you don’t deserve.’
He swore.
I laughed and hung up on him.
He called again a few days later.
‘I thought you’d like to know,’ he said. ‘Bianca’s having a little boy. Can you imagine? She’s very excited. But being pregnant is hard on her. She needs a break. You know, she’s never been out of England, don’t you? Well, she deserves a holiday. So how about you sign the whole Alaskan trip over to us? I know you’re generous to Bianca, and we won’t be able to afford overseas trips once the baby’s arrived.’
‘Aw, how cute. A baby boy. Congratulations, Eddie.’ I sounded light-hearted, but inside fury mounted. ‘Did Bianca ask you to call, thinking it might make a difference?’ I waited, knowing silence would goad him to say something foolish.
‘So, what do you say?’ Baffled, he tried cajoling.
‘You’re unbelievable. I’ve paid eighty per cent of it. Of course, no. You’re a pair of greedy, grasping bastards.’ This time I swore with ever improving fluency before he hung up.
‘Too bad she misses out,’ Shona said, anger flaming her cheeks. ‘She’s never been on a plane. What a crying shame. My heart bleeds for her. Have you thought about what you’re going to do about Alaska?’
‘I thought about it for ages after he’d called, and I made a decision. I’m going on my own.’
‘Really? You’re sure?’
‘Why the surprise?’
She grinned. ‘Because you haven’t shown this amount of decisiveness since you got together with that sorry excuse for a human being. I’m proud of you.’ She gave me a thumbs up. ‘Really proud of you.’
Her words made me think. Brigid agreed with her. So did my parents. I’d changed without realizing. I’d become fearful of Eddie’s readiness to stomp on me.
Understanding my doormat status propelled me into a bitter bitch and helped me to stand up to Eddie whenever he tried to gouge something from me.
He kept calling, hoping to bully me into concessions.
A few days after the holiday demand he called about my engagement ring. He wanted it back.
I hung up without saying a word.
He resorted to emails. He demanded most of the furniture, claiming most of it had originally belonged to him. Some of it had come from his bachelor days, but by no means all of it. And all his crappy stuff had been donated to a thrift shop. My furniture would be sold at auction, because I had no intention of keeping anything he and that slapper had soiled.
I refused to engage in debate by any medium except Dominic, and ignored his correspondence. Eventually, I emailed them on to Dominic without opening them. He received them with a satisfied rubbing of his hands.
‘Just think how a court will love this. He thinks he can arouse sympathy for his circumstances. These emails display his real character and it’s not sympathetic. Not one little bit. Any fight he tries to muster will absolutely fail.’ He gave me a shark-eating grin. ‘If he gives you any more trouble let me know. I’ll be only too happy to make him pay.’
I arrived home one Saturday about ten weeks after Eddie walked out to find him waiting in his car. On the drive. My drive.
It smacked of over-confidence in his access rights and his ability to intimidate me. And I was still in the bitter bitch phase.
I parked on the street and stomped out of my car. He was out of his car in a flash, eyes cold and hard.
‘What do you want?’ I stopped at the foot of the drive.
‘To talk to you.’
‘Get lost.’
‘Can we talk like civilized adults inside?’ He started walking to the house.
I stood my ground. No way would I allow him into my space again. He turned around at the front door, disconcerted. I hadn’t moved.
‘Rose, it’s cold out here.’
I shrugged and didn’t move.
Impatient, he clomped back to me, hand held out. ‘Don't be childish. Give me the keys.’
Incredulous, I said, ‘I don't think so.’
‘We’re not going to stand on the drive sorting out our personal issues.’ He waved his hand at the other houses. ‘What would everyone think?’
‘First of all, I don’t give a tinker’s toss what other people think.’ I waved to a curtain-twitching neighbor. ‘And secondly, I agree we’re not going to stand here talking about personal issues.’
Triumphant, he tossed his head, as if I’d proved his point.
‘No, dickhead. You want to talk, you have to go through Dominic. That’s what divorce lawyers are for – mediating – so two people who loathe each other can get things sorted without screaming and shouting.’
His eyes went hard again.
‘I want to talk about division of assets, Rose. We don’t need lawyers for that.’
‘Hah! That’s when we need them the most, you moron. Money is the biggest single factor in ruining amicable settlements. You’re a total fuckwit, Eddie.’
Determined, he ignored me and carried on.
‘Look. You’re being pigheaded about this.’ He stated this as a self-evident truth only I couldn’t see.
‘Naturally, that’s your point of view. A view not shared by anyone else.’
He continued to ignore me. I examined his sulky face and wondered why I hadn’t seen his true colors before I married him.
‘Rose,’ he said, switching to his low and sexy voice, trying to charm me. ‘You must see it’s unjust for Bianca and me to live in her one-bedroom flat when you’re living in our three-bedroom house.’
I blinked innocently at him. ‘Do go on, Eddie. I’m gagging to hear how it’s unjust.’
He glared, frustrated. ‘Well, there’s only one of you. You don’t need as much space as we do. Our finances are stretched tight, what with paying rent and my share of the mortgage.’
I knew he was itching to add that there’d soon be a third little person with increasing costs, but held back. My current intransigence was getting through to him. He hadn’t swayed me.
‘Just remember you didn’t want this discussion in the public view of our drive.’ I drew a deep breath. ‘What do you really think you’re entitled to, Eddie? You may have lumbered yourself with more debt, a soon-to-be-second wife and a soon-to-be-child, but that’s your choice, not mine. I’ll just say this once; I have absolutely no intention of giving you any more than you’re entitled to, and Dominic tells me that’s not much.’
‘I didn’t realize you were so selfish, Rose. How can I be expected to support a wife and child on my income without some financial consideration from our divorce settlement?’
My mouth dropped open. ‘You’re IQ has never been high, has it? Every time you open your mouth you sound really, really, dumb. There is absolutely no reason why I should subsidize your affair and its outcome out of my income and my hard work. No, this is all on you, you loser. You made your bed and you can lie in it with that leg-spreading slut.’
All his decisions were catching up with him, particularly his financial predicament.
He teetered, at a loss for words.
‘Counting the cost of your wandering willy?’ I asked, contempt in my voice.
‘That’s not fair. Bianca deserves more from you. She was your friend.’
‘And what a fine friend she turned out to be,’ I said with heavy sarcasm. ‘Besides, that’s a lie. It’s only a few days ago she told me she’d never been my friend, just used me to get what she wanted.’
‘You don’t care about anyone except yourself, you miserable, selfish, fat cow.’
Now the gloves were off.
‘I can’t believe the man you’ve become, Eddie. Once upon a time I thought you were a decent man, someone worthy of my love, but all I see before me is a man as vile as the woman you’re now with. You’re both liars and cheats. You’re both trying to swindle me, proud of soiling every room in this house with your squalid affair. At what point could you possibly think I’d give you a clap on the back and say “sure, Eddie, you and Bianca can take everything?”.’ My voice dropped back to normal levels. ‘You have the hide to ask for the holiday, the house, the furniture, things I’ve paid far more than you have, when anyone with an ounce of intelligence would see that’s rubbish. No, you and Bianca can stew in your own cesspool of money problems without my help.’
Goaded, white-faced, Eddie surged towards me, fists raised.
I stood my ground. ‘Just you try it, Eddie, just you try it. Hit me and you’ll find yourself charged with assault so fast you won’t know what hit you. Fancy a stint in jail? A fine upstanding citizen like you, with a reputation for violence your company won’t stand for? Cos I’d make sure the charges stuck. Dominic would have a field day.’
Panicked, Eddie stepped back. ‘Go fuck yourself, Rose,’ he ground out between paper white lips, eyes slitted.
‘Better than fucking you,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t want to catch a disease from your diseased little prick.’
‘You foul bitch,’ he yelled.
‘Not as foul as you, Eddie.’ I sneered. ‘Did you think you were being clever about your promotion and very generous pay rise?’ His face blanched. ‘Because stupid as you might think I am, it didn’t take me long to open all your secret files. Thirteen thousand pounds extra a year and none of it for us, for our future. None of it for gifts for your wife. None of it for the holiday we’d planned.’ I took a deep breath. ‘All of that extra money went on gifts to keep your little floozy happy, didn’t it?’ My voice dropped to a whisper. ‘She’s a bottomless money pit, Eddie, and she’s all yours. You chose a heartless, selfish, mean-spirited, money-guzzling, greedy bitch for your life partner. You’re such a fool. If you’re in financial difficulty now it’s because you’ve thrown away all common sense and savvy money skills on a woman who’ll probably ditch you and your child if she can find a richer man instead.’
I overstepped the mark at this point.
Fury spat from his eyes and I wanted to retract that last bit, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
‘I think you’ve insulted my fiancée quite enough, Rose. You’re a foul bitch and I can’t believe I ever saw anything in you worth marrying you for.’
‘Apart from the house? My house?’ I shrugged, suddenly weary of him. ‘That’s a two-way street, Eddie. You had a pretty face, I think that’s all I ever saw in you. The charm wore off with the wedding. Now I know that’s all you have. I thought lying and cheating was Bianca’s specialty, but I was wrong. You were made for each other. You’ll both be having affairs once you’re over this honeymoon period.’
‘We love each other, Rose. Something you don’t seem to have grasped.’
I held a hand to my ear, pretending to listen. ‘All I can hear is “blah, blah, blah”. For chrissake, get lost, Eddie, you’re boring the shit out of me. I won’t give you any quarter over money. Bianca will have to go back to work after the baby’s born, just like most other struggling couples. You made your choice, you live with it.’
He stormed off to his car, yanking open the door with frustrated ferocity. ‘You’ll regret this, you know.’
‘Yeah, right. I’d regret it a damn sight more if your life was made easier through my money.’
He threw himself into the driver’s seat, jumping out just as quickly and slamming the door as hard as he could. ‘Give me back my ring.’
‘Huh? What ring? You mean my engagement ring?’ I gave a brief, hard laugh. ‘Nope.’
‘I bought it, you can give it back. It cost a packet and I demand you return it, now!’
I looked at him impassively. ‘Yes, it cost a packet and I paid for half of it, you cheapskate. It was a gift, freely given and you don’t get it back, not a chance.’
‘We’ll see about that. My lawyer will be in contact.’
‘And mine will tell yours, politely, to go to hell. An engagement ring is not part of a divorce settlement. Besides, I don’t have it any more.’ I shrugged, feigning nonchalance.
‘What?! What did you do with it? That was my hard-earned money.’
‘And mine.’ I snapped back.
‘Where is it?’
I shrugged again, feigning a yawn. ‘It could be buried in silt in the bottom of the river. You could try diving for it, but you’ll never find it.’ It was neither a lie nor the truth.
Gobsmacked, he spluttered, struggling for a response.
‘I don’t believe you. You’re not that stupid, that ring meant the world to you. You wouldn’t throw away good money.’
‘Believe what you like.’ Indifferent, I shrugged. ‘The ring may have been precious to me when given in love, but it became meaningless when you left. And what’s more, when I knew you’d screwed Bianca in every room in this house, this house became pretty damned meaningless, too. The person I loved and married was a sham. Just an empty shell. And,’ I continued, moving closer and wagging my finger in his face, ‘you should consider this – what’s to stop Bianca doing that again with someone else when she gets bored with you, Eddie? Cos you’re really a very boring person, aren’t you? Or what happens if you get bored with Bianca? You’re both too stupid to see how brain-dead you are. Your so-called love’s been built on lies from the start and I’ll just bet I’m right and adultery umpteenth time round comes easier.’ I stepped away from him. ‘You can shove that thought up your arse, Eddie. Now, get lost.’
‘You wouldn’t know real love if it leapt out and bit you, Rose. Bianca and I love each other, you just got in the way and we’ve trodden on you on our way to the real thing.’ He sneered in my face. ‘And you’re so green with jealousy you’re being as spiteful as you can.’
I laughed, genuinely amused. ‘No, Eddie. I might have been gobsmacked and even hurt at first, but I’m not jealous. Not even a little bit. You know why? Because I’m not losing anything worth keeping. You two are welcome to each other. I expect you’ll be miserable together in a year or more, and you’ll both deserve it. The sooner our divorce is settled, the happier I’ll be.’ I jerked his car door open again. ‘Get in and piss off.’
He went, spluttering in rage.
The confrontation left me all scrunched up and tense. Once inside, I perched on a sofa, knees like jelly, still shaking.
I jumped when the doorbell rang, heart racing. Had he come back, this time thinking he’d manage to get inside?
Heartily glad it was a timber door, not glass, I called out, ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s just Ron, love, from next door.’
My elderly neighbor. We often chatted over the back fence about our gardens and the weather.
I opened the door. Ron and his wife, Beryl, stood there looking sheepish.
‘Sorry to bother you, Rose, but I was worried for you when Eddie turned up. He’d been sitting there for a while and we could see he was in a right strop.’ He paused as if to continue, but his wife beat him to it.
‘Tell her, Ron, she needs to know we’re not usually nosy neighbors.’ Beryl turned to me. ‘We hope you don’t mind, but, like Ron said, we were right worried for you.’
Ron held up a memory card. ‘I videoed him, you see. Well, I videoed both of you.’
Nonplussed, I looked from one to the other.
‘See, we thought he might hit you, so Ron had the camera and I had the phone, ready to call the police. What a palaver.’ She looked at me, eyes expectant.
I invited them both in for a cuppa and allowed them to show me what they’d filmed. Eddie certainly appeared enraged enough to hit
me, using his height and proximity to try and intimidate me.
‘You look like you could do with a stiff drink, not just a cuppa.’ Beryl patted my hand after watching me take in the fifteen-minute clip. ‘I hope you don’t think we’re sticking our noses where they’re not wanted?’
‘No, actually, I’m glad you gave me this.’ I held up the memory card. ‘My lawyer will love it.’ I grinned. ‘Come on, let’s make a cup of tea, or coffee. I’m taking your advice, I could use some coffee to wash away a stiff drink.’
We all had a stiff drink, followed by coffee. I gave them a potted history of our demise as a couple, leaving out the colorful language and the awful names I’d called Bianca.
Avid gossips, it would be a few short hours before all their cronies knew the story. And how nice to know I’d given them the unvarnished truth. Eddie’s version would differ, but I now had solid proof. If he and Bianca could afford to buy the house from me, then the neighbors wouldn’t have any say in it. Ron and Beryl wouldn’t forget this contretemps. And I didn’t think they’d be friendly.
Eddie might regret what he’d wished for.
Dom dropped in that evening to pick up the footage, eyes sharp with righteous anger on my behalf.
‘Do you want a restraining order against him? This is harassment and intimidation. A restraining order could be given under certain circumstances.’
I pulled a face, reluctant to take such a step. ‘I’d have to take all this to the police, wouldn’t I?’
‘This is evidence.’ He held up the card. ‘I’ve kept a record of every coercive contact he’s had with you. A restraining order would be certain.’
‘What about just the threat of a restraining order? I mean, if his lawyer were made aware of what he’s doing?’
He chuckled. ‘Brilliant. Shall I set it in motion?’
‘Give me a sec,’ I thought through the ramifications. ‘Yeah, let’s do that. I feel pressured and stressed all the time because of him. Yep, do it. Just the threat of this should make him back off.’
Dom contacted me the following day. ‘Done,’ he said. ‘Just the threat of a court order put the wind up him. There’ll be no more contact from him. Happy with that?’
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