Yet another reason, then, to be grateful for Peter.
As the group faded from our lives, another figure – somewhat grey, lean and stooped – emerged. John was one of the residents at the doss-house. He was old, about seventy, and was always shuffling around in his crepe-soled shoes. But from the way he and Peter talked, it was clear they shared years of history. They were both from the same part of Scotland, I think, although how they ended up together in Brighton was a mystery. Although he’d been a newcomer to the Hungry Years, Peter told me he’d been in Brighton for ages because of his previous marriage. In fact, he said, his stillborn daughter from that relationship was buried in a local cemetery and he’d already bought the plot next to hers for himself. It was such a tragic story, I never had the heart to ask for more information.
He’ll tell me when he’s ready.
I’d often see John and Peter walking up and down the streets together or going for a drink or watching the world from a bench.
It’s only looking back – there’s that hindsight again – that I realize it must have been Peter’s idea that we put a bit of distance between the bikers and us. Eventually I figured out that he’d been a pretty transient character, not really that close to any of them and not, I didn’t realize till later, even a member of the Rising Sun gang. I, on the other hand, had been at the centre of that community for a couple of years. I’d done my growing up with them. I knew everyone and they knew me. Only a paranoiac would ever think that their partner was actively trying to steer them away from seeing their friends, so obviously that thought never crossed my mind. But that is exactly what he was doing.
Peter’s greatest skill was manipulation. As I mentioned, he never told me to stop seeing the gang. Sometimes he put obstacles in the way – like arranging for us to go somewhere else on a weekend or giving me a few hours’ work. Other times, if he could see I was wavering about going, he’d just let slip a few snide remarks one of them had said about me.
‘You know he thinks you’re cheap, don’t you?’ he said about one guy I’d known for years.
I fell for it.
‘What do you mean, cheap?’
‘It’s not fair for me to say,’ Peter said, suddenly coy. ‘He’s not here to defend himself.’
‘I’ll be the judge of what’s fair. Just tell me what he said.’
‘Okay, but you didn’t hear it from me.’ He paused and looked at me lovingly. ‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Okay, he says you’re the local bike. You have been since you were fourteen.’
‘That’s a lie!’
‘I know, pet, I know. I told him that. I said, “If I hear you say that again there’ll be trouble.”’
There were plenty of conversations like that. At the time, I’d be ready to march down to the pub and declare open season. But then I’d usually think, Sod them. The upshot was, I wouldn’t see anyone – which is, of course, what Peter had wanted all along.
So why, I bet you’re asking, did I listen to him?
It’s a good question and it has a very simple answer: because I honestly thought I’d got the better deal in this relationship! I’d seen the women flocking round Peter at the Hungry Years. Girls always came over to him when we were out; I’d seen it with my own eyes. And, from what I could tell, they all had a lot more to offer than I did. They were older, more mature; they knew how to treat a man.
I had so much to learn, I knew that. When I came back to the flat one day and found Peter having coffee with a woman I’d never seen before, I was angry. That quickly became jealousy – Why is she here, in my home, with my man? But then, when Peter explained this Lucy woman was just a friend, no different to John, I just felt stupid. I was so young. I’d had no parents to show me the ways of the world.
That’s obviously how proper grown-up relationships work.
There were times when I considered myself literally honoured to have been chosen by Peter. So that’s why, whenever he suggested something, I listened. I hung on his every word. Even when he tried to change me.
The things about me that he’d said turned him on – my short skirts, stilettos, bright-red lipstick – were the first things to go. I don’t know how he did it. Those were the things I most associated with my own identity. I’d cultivated that look over years of posing and preening and shopping and experimenting. Yet somehow they all gradually disappeared from my fashion repertoire.
The heels went first. I suppose he felt more comfortable without me looming over him, but he never admitted that. He was clever. He said, ‘I’ve got you a present,’ and handed over a shoe box. More excited than you could imagine, I ripped it open – and found the ugliest pair of flat shoes I’d ever seen.
The me of a few months earlier would have laughed in his face and thrown them back at him. The new me, the one so desperate to be mature enough for this worldly man, didn’t want to disappoint. And so I took the shoes and put them on and didn’t look back.
When you’re young and you think you’re in love, you want to please your partner, don’t you? It’s natural. If you don’t, then you’re in the wrong relationship. So when he mentioned how much he liked longer skirts, I found myself digging around for something a bit more respectable. I hadn’t worn anything below the knee for years, but I did it for Peter. Making him happy made me happy, just as it had done with Mum.
A couple of other changes happened for different reasons. Without regular work, I had no income. Peter gave me money for shopping, but made it clear that times were tight. He never actually said, ‘Don’t waste your money on lipsticks and mascaras,’ but I would have felt a selfish cow if I had. So, gradually, as the staples of my make-up bag were depleted, the colour vanished from my face. As for maintaining the highlights in my immaculately coiffed hair – forget it. I couldn’t justify that, not when he was being so kind to me in the first place.
If you’d asked me at the time, I would have sworn there was never any pressure on me to dress down. Even when he would pore over every till receipt, scrutinizing where every penny of his cash had gone, I chalked it up to a generational thing or maybe even a Scottish habit. He was checking the shops hadn’t ripped him off, I assumed. It would never have occurred to me to imagine he was checking up on me. What sort of person would even think of such a thing?
It took about two months. By the turn of the year I’d gone from hot young thing to a plain Jane in sackcloth and sensible shoes. I was like a bad caricature of my former self and the worst thing was that I couldn’t even tell. When I looked in the mirror I didn’t see this dowdy, mousey-haired teenager staring back. I only saw the proud, happy partner of the wonderful Mr Tobin.
To this day, I don’t know if Peter had a plan with me or whether he was acting on pure instinct. I don’t know if he schemed from the start to make me utterly dependent on him, to rob me of any shred of self-esteem or independence, or whether that’s just how he was. For all I know, he did that to every partner.
When I consider all the things that happened seemingly randomly, it seems inconceivable that it was pure chance. He must have been pulling the strings from the moment we met, spinning plates in the air one at a time – and he was so damn smooth I never even noticed. It was a war of wills and I’d surrendered before it had begun.
I know now that changing my appearance was a control thing. He didn’t give a toss about my hair or my skirts or my tight tops or my heels. He probably liked them. But what he really loved more than anything was proving that he was the boss of me. If he could take those things most precious to me, the very characteristics that I thought defined me, and make me give them up, then he could do anything to me. That was his logic – and that is exactly what happened.
Everything was so subtle, so cunning. It was like being mugged and not realizing it until the pickpocket has left the country. Whatever he did, however extreme it seems to me today, there was always a reason for his behaviour. I could always come up with a justific
ation. Maybe he planted the idea, but it was always my own call. I came up with the excuses all on my own and didn’t I feel clever for that.
He engineered everything. Getting me to change my appearance would never have worked if we’d kept in with the Rising Sun crowd. I would never have agreed to ditch my leathers if I was still knocking around in those circles – the bikers would never have let me get away with those shoes and dresses. So he’d steered me away from them, chipping away, whispering how I was better than them, how they didn’t deserve me, how I was too mature for those reprobates. I was so hungry for approval, I lapped it up. Was he a master of human nature or did he just spot that my ego would respond that way? I think it was a bit of both. Anyway, it worked. He played me like a puppet. Every day that passed, he exerted more and more control over me.
Of course, I didn’t see any of this. If I had, I would never have fallen for his next trick.
The way Peter explained his lowly job at the old folks’ place was simple and perfectly logical – and, of course, he came out of it in a sympathetic light.
After so many successful years making a fortune in various different and exciting industries, his war wounds had finally caught up with him. The shrapnel was sliding further into his body and inflicting more pain. Ultimately, he was too ill to work. As for his money, well, he admitted he’d been married before, but she’d run off as soon as he was too ill to work, wiping out all their savings. So now here he was, an injured war hero, doing the best he could in Brighton, looking after pensioners.
It was a story to make anyone’s heart bleed. I had nothing but respect for the way he’d got his life back on track. I didn’t even begrudge him milking the benefits system for every penny he could squeeze out.
‘They owe me,’ he said. ‘After all I’ve done for this country.’
I was compelled to agree. He put his body on the line and now he’s paying for it with his health. It’s the least the government can do.
Even that was a massive change for me. A year before, the idea of accepting dole money or disability allowances or any of those handouts would have been anathema to me. That was Grandpa’s pride seeping through again. He’d been offered financial help to look after me but had refused it. ‘No one is going to tell me I can’t afford to feed my family,’ he’d said. As much as I learnt to respect his principles, if he hadn’t been so stubborn I would have been able to do judo and ballroom dancing.
So once again, without even seeing the sleight of hand, I’d given up another piece of my personality and replaced it with a slice of Peter’s. My pride at pulling my weight and my desire to work had gone up against Peter’s raging sense of entitlement and hadn’t even landed a punch. I hate myself for it now, but I just gave in. Another cherished belief handed over and trampled into the dust by the master manipulator.
Living off a disability pension meant Peter was always disappearing to the doctor’s for check-ups and tests. Usually he’d return with the largest bag of pills I’d ever seen. Some of them had names like Amitriptyline and Triazolam, but I didn’t have a clue what they were for.
‘Do you take all of those?’
‘Every one,’ he said. ‘Until next month when I get a new batch.’
God, I’d had no idea he was so ill. I’d never heard him mention his pain since that first day in the Hungry Years. The poor love must be so brave, I thought, keeping it to himself. And what pain must he have been in to warrant this vast amount of drugs? I didn’t have any answers. All I could say for sure is that I was more determined than ever to look after him. He deserved it.
One day Peter returned from his trip to the GP with the usual medication, but I could tell there was something wrong. It was in his face, in his body language, it even seemed to come out of his pores.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about me, hen, I’m fine,’ he said, but clearly that was a lie.
If my man’s ill, it’s my job to know, I told myself. The amount of pride I derived from seeing through his protestations of good health was ridiculous. It was affirmation, me proving that I was a good girlfriend.
I had to wrestle it out of him, or so I thought, but eventually Peter told me to sit down with him. Worried as hell, I obeyed. Every second that he sat there, in silence, I felt the fear rise in me. What on earth is he going to say? I’d gone from pride to anxiety to abject terror in the blink of an eye.
‘I saw my doctor today and he gave me the results of a test I had done last week.’
‘Test? What test? You never told me you were having a test? What’s wrong?’
‘I found a lump,’ he said, so quietly that I had to lean in, hanging on his every syllable. ‘In my testicle.’
I gasped. I couldn’t help it. The tears were already in my eyes, waiting for their cue.
‘It’s not . . . ?’ I couldn’t bring myself to say the word.
Peter nodded. ‘It is. I’m sorry, love. I’ve got cancer.’
Wow. When a bombshell like that hits, you can either bury your head in the sand or go crazy. I went crazy, completely into overdrive. I wanted to know everything about this perfidious disease. I wanted to completely mother my man, fulfil his every whim. And I wanted to show my love for him more than ever. We had to fight this together. We were a team.
‘Are they going to cut your balls off?’ I asked.
Of all the questions! But that’s what they did to women with breast cancer. I figured it would be the same for him.
Peter shook his head. ‘No, thank God. The doctor thinks he can treat it with a laser. I won’t lose anything.’ He paused. ‘Except . . .’
‘Except what? Come on, you can tell me. I’m here for you.’
He picked up my hands and stared directly into my eyes. I felt like he could see into my very soul.
‘The thing is, Cathy, when they use the laser, they’ll kill off my reproductive ability. I’m so sorry,’ he said, crying now. ‘I won’t be able to give you children.’
That was in January 1987. By the start of February I’d done some serious thinking. This was the man I intended to spend my life with. This was my war hero, my lover, my worldly gift of a man. At some point in the future, I rationalized, I will want to have his babies. That wasn’t going to be possible, though, was it? So why not have them now?
Christ, I was much too young for children. My mother’s problems had begun, it pained me to admit, when she’d accidentally fallen pregnant with me. Yes, she and Dad had got married. Yes, I suppose they were in love for a while. But they had been too young, too immature, too out of their depth to make it work. If their pregnancy hadn’t exactly ruined their lives, it had certainly shaped them. And Mum’s life, of course, had been ruled by the hold her blackmailers had over her while I was around. I was the knife they’d held at her throat, the sharp stick that made her do everything they demanded.
No, I told myself. Mum had been unlucky. She wasn’t in control. Not of her body, not of her life. Not like me.
A few days later I told Peter I wanted to have his children.
‘Really? But you’re so young. It will change your life forever.’
‘I know. But I want to do it.’ I kissed him. ‘For you.’
He hugged me tighter than he’d ever done before and we both cried.
And then, in March 1987, I announced I was pregnant and Peter couldn’t have been happier. It wouldn’t take me long to discover why . . .
THIRTEEN
I’ll Try Harder
From the moment I became pregnant, everything altered. And not for the better.
Even before my little bump began to show and then grow and grow, it was all I could think about. My child had my full attention, my entire focus. Suddenly Peter wasn’t the most important person in my life. My unborn baby was. And he didn’t like it one bit.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked when he saw me getting ready to go out one morning.
‘To the doctor’s,’ I replied. ‘It’s only a routine ch
eck-up. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Well, if it’s nothing to worry about, it can wait till after you’ve done some cleaning.’
I stared at him, searching his face for a sign that he was joking. Nothing.
‘Are you serious?’ I asked eventually.
‘Well, this flat’s not going to clean itself, is it?’
Too tired to argue, I took my coat off again and got out a brush to sweep the floor. Then, as soon as Peter had gone out, I shoved the broom back in the cupboard and rushed out. If I hurried, I might still make the appointment.
It was only on the way back that I thought about Peter’s behaviour. He was obviously anxious about the baby, I decided. I needed to remember that I wasn’t the only one my pregnancy was affecting. I needed to be more sympathetic to him.
That was easier said than done. A few days later, during dinner, I brought up the subject of where our baby was going to sleep. I’d been thinking about it for ages and hoped that would be the cue for Peter to say we could go out shopping for bassinets and babygrows. I couldn’t have been more wrong. He threw his cutlery down and looked like I’d insulted his mother.
‘Shut the fuck up, woman!’ he exploded. ‘You’re obsessed.’ Then he pushed his chair back and stormed out of the flat. He’s just nervous about the baby, I reassured myself. But that didn’t stop me crying myself to sleep that night.
I truly hoped Peter would snap out of whatever was troubling him, but if anything he just got more and more angry. I couldn’t do anything right. If there was a newspaper out of place, it was my fucking fault. If he couldn’t find his watch, I must have fucking moved it. Everything was ‘fuck’ this or ‘fuck’ that, which I absolutely hated. Even worse, it was usually followed by some insult directed at me. ‘What the fuck have you done with my keys, you stupid bitch?’
Escape From Evil Page 17