How To Throw Your Life Away

by Laurie Ellingham

  She really was pathetic. Pathetic and boring.

  Boring because she loved gardening. She loved agonising over which bulbs to plant each year and where to place her latest shrub. And when she had weeded and pruned and clipped and tidied everything in her own garden, she went to Green Tips and helped Mary with the floral displays and anything else she needed.

  Boring because she didn’t like clubbing or festivals, or drinking beer from plastic cups. She liked quiet pub gardens and nice wine from proper wine glasses. She liked the occasional dinner at a little bistro, although recently, Christmas seemed to be an occasion that occurred more times each year than a romantic meal out. But it was her pathetic and boring life and she liked it.

  Katy slipped her key into the lock and stepped inside, unsure if she’d rather find it empty or not.

  The sound of voices in the kitchen greeted Katy as she closed the front door. For a fleeting moment she thought about stepping straight back out again.

  ‘Katy? Is that you?’ Adam called out.

  ‘Yep,’ Katy said, forcing her feet towards the kitchen. Why did she get the feeling that the day was far from over?

  Katy heard the scraping of kitchen chairs and the usual bang as they knocked into the kitchen cupboards on either side of the narrow room. As she reached the door way, a petite woman in a white blouse with giant pearl buttons hopped out from the side of the table towards her.

  ‘Hi, I’m Melissa Sullivan, Victim Support Officer,’ she said, waving what Katy could only assume was an I.D card at her, before tucking it into the pocket of her tailored black trousers.

  ‘Hi,’ Katy said, shaking Melissa’s tiny outstretched hand, and feeling like the giant yellow bird on the kids show she’d watched as a child.

  Katy could not avoid it any longer. Her gaze moved towards Adam, standing a few steps back, his six foot four frame towering over the Victim Support Officer like another giant.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi,’ he replied, shuffling around Melissa and bending down to kiss Katy’s cheek, but changing his mind and giving her an awkward shoulder pat instead.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, searching his face for evidence of her “attack”, as Sergeant Mackenzie had called it.

  ‘Me? Oh yeah I’ll live.’ Adam brushed his cheek with one hand, scrunching his face as he prodded a red rectangular lump. She’d expected a bigger bruise, a black eye at the very least. Maybe she hadn’t hit him as hard as she remembered. Not hard enough. The thought popped into her head before she could stop it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wishing again that the beige floor tiles would pull apart and swallow her up.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Adam mumbled, ‘I know I must have been ignoring you. It was an important game, you know? I was engrossed.’

  ‘Actually,’ Melissa said, tilting her head up so she could look at their faces. ‘It’s not okay, which is why I’m here, and why Katy has spent the best part of the evening at a police station.’

  ‘You don’t need to remind me,’ Katy said with more venom in her voice than she’d intended. What was happening to her today?

  ‘Of course not,’ Melissa nodded. ‘Why don’t we all take a seat and have a chat before we decide what to do next.’

  Katy closed her eyes for a moment and rubbed a hand across her forehead. It appeared her humiliation for the day was far from over.

  ‘Now Katy,’ Melissa began, once they’d all squeezed into the chairs at the kitchen table. ‘Adam and I have been having a little chat about the events of the day, but before we spend any time talking about it together, I’ll just tell you what I’ve already told Adam. My job as a Victim Support Officer is to help Adam come to terms with what happened here today, and make sure he knows about the victim support services available to him.

  ‘Everything you say to me will be kept in strict confidence, unless I feel that you are a risk to Adam, yourself or anyone else, in which case I will notify Essex police immediately.

  ‘So, my first priority is to make sure Adam is safe, and as with most cases of domestic violence, you both have equal rights on your home, which can make securing the safety of the victim difficult...’

  White spots drifted in the edges of Katy’s vision. Domestic violence? Equal share? Victim safety? The bitter sting of bile burned at the back of her mouth. She shot a glance at Adam. Some of his hair had flopped forward from its usual position behind his ears as he nodded along to Melissa’s speech. It was the sort of hair an eighteen year old would have, not a man approaching thirty-five.

  She had a sudden urge to grab the scissors from the drawer and cut it.

  ‘Katy?’ Melissa had stopped talking.

  ‘Umm,’ she replied, blinking several times in quick succession as she tried to focus on Melissa.

  ‘I know you may not want to hear any of this, but as I was saying - Adam told me earlier that he is fine right now to stay in the home with you, but he has decided to sleep in the spare room until such time that he feels he can trust you again. This is something he felt I should be here to talk to you about.’

  ‘Did he?’ It didn’t sound like the kind of thing Adam would say.

  The two women turned their faces to Adam. He shrugged and touched his cheek as if no more response was needed.

  ‘Katy,’ Melissa continued, ‘is there anything you would like to say to Adam whilst I’m here?’

  ‘No.’ At that moment she could think of nothing she wanted to say to Adam, regardless of Melissa’s presence.

  ‘Right then.’ Melissa stood up, causing another scraping of chairs and banging of cupboards.

  ‘I’ll show you out,’ Adam said.

  ‘Thank you Adam. You’ve got my card, call me if you want to talk, day or night. I’ll check in with you tomorrow, and again on Tuesday after Katy’s first anger management class.’

  Katy’s eyes shot to Melissa. ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘Sergeant Mackenzie called me after you left the station. It’s common protocol in these situations.’

  Katy nodded and tried to swallow back another lump that seemed to be growing by the second in her throat.

  ‘Do you have all of the information you need about the course?’ Melissa asked Katy as she wriggled her tiny frame around the tight space between the table and the cupboards.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find the classes very useful,’ she said, giving a small wave of her hand and leaving Katy alone in the kitchen.

  Katy slumped back into the chair. Hunger rattled in her stomach but she made no move to reach for a glass of water or something to eat.

  ***

  ‘This is unbelievable,’ Katy said, sensing Adam’s presence behind her. ‘I mean, me of all people needing anger management classes. It’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Is it, Katy?’ Adam dropped into the chair next to her.

  ‘Of course it is. Today was a one-off. If you’d have just answered my question...’ Katy’s sentence trailed off as Adam shook his head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Melissa warned me you might do this,’ he said.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Make it out like today was just a blip. Twist things around so it was my fault.’

  Katy opened her mouth to retort and then stopped. Did Adam have a point?

  ‘I’m not saying we can’t get past this Katy,’ he said, ‘I’m sure we can. You can get the help you need and we’ll be back on track.’

  A track to where though? She found herself wondering.

  ‘I’ve cleared some space in my office and I’ll sleep in there for a while whilst we figure this out.’

  Katy gazed into Adam’s eyes for the first time since she’d been led away by two policemen earlier in the day. The familiarity of his face shot a bolt of pain through her.

  How it had come to this?

  ‘Look,’ Adam said, ‘Match of the Day starts in a minute. Why don’t you cook some pizza and we’ll sit and watch it together lik
e we used to.’ Adam placed his hand on hers and smiled in his half-smile way that used to melt her heart. When had it stopped?

  The pain she’d felt moments earlier hardened inside. Katy balled her hands into two tight fists and squeezed them until her nails dug into her palms.

  She thought of a few retorts to his suggestion of pizza and football, but none of them ended well. Instead she pushed back her chair and left the room without a word.

  Only after the door to their bedroom clicked shut behind her, did she stop trying to fight the hot tears from falling down her cheeks.

  What had happened to them? To Adam?

  Romantic Adam who had taken her for cocktails at the OXO tower in London on their first date. Tall Adam who had bent down to kiss her cheek and joked that he would bring her back again when he proposed.

  Every anniversary since that first date, every Christmas and birthday too, Katy had waited. Had hoped. Had agonised.

  Adam, the marathon runner. Claire had nicknamed him Super-fit Adam (this was a big step up from her previous boyfriend, who Claire had nicknamed Rick the Dick). The closest Adam came to any form of exercise now was betting on the football. He’d hurt his knee a month into their relationship. At the time he’d vowed to run the London marathon one day even if it killed him. Did he still own a pair of trainers?

  Adam, the passionate graphic designer, who she’d met at Adkin’s Advertising. Adam had been brought in at the last minute when the previous design company had got the spec wrong for the new mouthwash campaign. He had stayed late at her office for the entire week tinkering on every word and every picture until she’d been happy.

  When was the last time Adam had talked about his work? When was the last time she’d seen him do any work?

  Easy going Adam, who moved out of the flat he’d been renting in Earlsfield in South London, and back to Katy’s home town of Henley, so that they could afford a house with a garden. He’d set up his office in the spare room with the plan to commute the forty minute train journey to London for meetings and projects whenever he needed.

  They’d settled for a smaller house, and a smaller garden, than Katy had dreamed of. Getting a mortgage company to take Adam’s graphic design company seriously had been impossible. In the end it had been easier to leave Adam’s name off the mortgage and buy something that fitted Katy’s price range alone. Adam contributed to half of everything so it hadn't really mattered. At least, he had until last year when his bank card had been stolen, and he’d stopped using his account whilst the bank assessed the fraudulent purchases. Maybe he’d forgotten to set the standing order back up?

  Where had the man she’d fallen in love with gone?

  Sergeant Mackenzie’s parting words replayed in her mind. ‘These things don’t happen in isolation, Miss Davenport. In my experience people do not just snap. There is always something else behind it. Something that has been there for quite some time.’

  Silent sobs racked her body as she slid onto the bed.

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘Holy cow,’ Claire shrieked, throwing her hands to her face and sending her empty coffee cup clattering across the large oak kitchen table. ‘When you text me at the crack of dawn this morning and said you had something to tell me I thought you were going to say you were engaged.’

  Katy brushed her finger tips across her cheeks and wiped away the tears.

  The comfort of her best friend and her beautiful kitchen enveloped Katy like a hug.

  Everything had a place. Everything was put away. It looked like a kitchen out of a magazine shoot, except tidier. Claire was as fanatical about baking, and her kitchen, as Katy was about gardening. Katy felt more at home at this kitchen table than she’d ever done at her own.

  ‘Mummy, what is it?’ Archie, Claire’s five year old son ran up, jumping onto Katy’s lap.

  ‘Nothing Archie. Mummy and Katy were just talking about something that happened to Katy yesterday.’

  ‘I went to Daniel’s birthday party yesterday, Katy. He got a Nerf gun for his birthday. Mummy, can I get one for my birthday?’

  ‘No Archie, we’ve talked about this. Mummy and Daddy don’t like guns.’

  ‘But you don’t have to play with it.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ Claire said, reaching a hand to his head and fluffing his hair, ‘and you know it. Now where is your sister?’

  ‘Upstairs getting changed. She wants to do a show for you and Katy, but it’s just for girls. I’m going to do a boys show which only boys are allowed in. Boys shows are way better than girls shows, aren’t they Katy?’

  ‘Umm, I don’t know Archie. I’m sure they will both be lovely. I look forward to seeing them,’ she smiled.

  ‘We are never going to get any peace like this,’ Claire said as Archie raced out of the kitchen. ‘I know. Grab your bag, let’s go out for lunch. We still haven’t tried that new Italian that’s opened up next to the poli-, oops sorry. You know the one I mean.’

  ‘Look at me, Claire. I’m a total mess.’ Katy gestured at the loose t-shirt and jeans she’d thrown on that morning. The first clothes she’d put her hands on in her hurry to leave the house before Adam had woke up. ‘I can’t go out looking like this.’

  ‘No, of course. You’re right, you do look a mess. Onto plan B.’ Claire winked at Katy before calling out to her husband, ‘NICK?’

  ‘Yep,’ Claire’s husband Nicholas strolled barefoot into the Kitchen. His short brown hair stuck out at odd angles, and his face looked half asleep without the glasses he usually wore. ‘Hi Katy, how are you?’ he asked, dropping a light peck onto Katy’s cheek before walking across the kitchen and pulling open the fridge.

  ‘Daaaddy,’ Archie began, running back into the room, ‘Why don’t you like guns?’

  ‘Err,’ Nicholas shut the fridge door. He glanced at Claire, who shrugged a response. ‘Because they aren’t very nice.’

  ‘Nicholas,’ Claire said. ‘Katy is having a crisis and we need some alone time to talk.’

  Nicholas moved his gaze to Katy. ‘Say no more,’ he said, as if only just noticing the dark circles under Katy’s eyes.

  ‘Kids,’ he called, turning to face Archie and Ruby, who trotted into the room in a full length princess dress with matching pink plastic heels. ‘Let’s get our shoes on and go to the playground.’

  ‘YAYYY,’ they both cheered.

  ‘And if you are very good,’ he smiled at them, ‘we might stop and get a donut on the way home.’

  ‘Can I have a pink one, Daddy?’ Ruby wrapped her arms and legs around Nicholas’s right leg. ‘Pink is my favourite colour.’

  ‘Can I have an orange one please, Daddy? My favourite colour is orange,’ Archie said, grabbing his father’s other leg.

  ‘Let’s see what they’ve got when we get there. Now Ruby, honey, let go of my leg and go upstairs and change, please. You cannot wear your princess dress to the park.’

  ‘Ohhh please, Daddy? I love being a princess.’

  ‘DADDY SAID CHANGE.’ Archie turned to his sister before punching her on the arm.

  ‘Archie, NO,’ Claire and Nicholas both said over Ruby’s screams. ‘Hitting is very naughty. Say sorry to Ruby,’ Claire added.

  ‘But Daniel hits his brothers all the time, and he never gets told off.’

  ‘You are not Daniel and we have different rules in this house. Say sorry now.’

  ‘Sorry now,’ Archie mumbled with a grin as he ran off towards the front door.

  ‘Oh the joys of the weekend,’ Claire laughed. ‘Katy, go outside, finish your coffee and resist the urge to start pulling weeds up in my garden. If I don’t help Nick get these two out of the house, they’ll never leave.’

  ‘Thanks guys,’ Katy said, glancing between Claire and Nicholas.

  Even with three-year old Ruby in a heap on the floor, screaming at a pitch so high that it hurt her ears, it still looked like bliss to Katy.

  The weight returned to Katy’s chest as she made her way outside to the black wick
er table and chairs at the bottom of Claire and Nicholas’s garden. The whir of a distant lawnmower and the sweet scent of late blooming lavender carried in the breeze. She hated the jealousy that gnawed at her insides when she looked at her best friend’s life. She’d known Claire ever since the day they’d started secondary school together. They had both joined from schools out of the area. The only girls in a class of forty who didn’t know anyone else. They had gravitated towards each other, then and now.

  ***

  ‘This conversation,’ Claire said, grinning as she walked across the lawn, ‘definitely warrants something stronger than coffee ‘Ice clinked in the two glasses of Pimm’s and lemonade in her hands.

  The weight lifted from Katy’s chest. She had never loved Claire more.

  ‘So,’ Claire said, ‘now that we’ve got the place to ourselves, tell me everything that happened.’

  ‘Everything?’ Katy frowned.

  ‘Everything.’

  Katy took a long slow sip of Pimm’s, allowing the cold fruity bubbles to jump around her mouth for a moment before swallowing. It took two more gulps until the alcohol cloaked her thoughts, and two more mouthfuls before she started to talk.

  ‘....the next thing I know, I’m sitting at the bottom of the garden with the remote still gripped in my hand.’

  ‘So how on earth did the police get involved?’ Claire asked. ‘Adam didn’t call them, did he?’

  ‘Nope. One of the neighbours called the police. I think it must have been the lady next door.’

  ‘Nosy cow. So what happened when the police came?’

  ‘They said they’d had reports of domestic violence and wanted to speak with us. One of the officers took Adam into the kitchen, and the other one stayed in the garden and spoke to me. I was taken to the police station and asked a lot of questions, which was awful, and then at the end of it I was given this conditional police caution thing. So now I have to attend anger management classes or they’ll prosecute me, but seriously, me going to anger management classes - I’ll die of shame.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Katy. That’s crazy.’

  ‘I know,’ Katy nodded.

  ‘You could’ve called me. I know I only did a year as a legal secretary before Archie came along, but I still might’ve been able to help.’