by Shaw, O. C
“Well, how do you think? We weren’t exactly as careful as we could have been. You didn’t always use a condom.”
It was true, we had often had sex without any sort of protection, like that first time. When I would nervously question it, he would say it felt better without and would promise he’d withdraw in time. Clearly that hadn’t happened, or at least not often enough or soon enough in the proceedings to make a difference. He had ranted at me that I was a “stupid cow who didn’t know how to take the pill”; I had “ruined his life”, and he demanded I have a termination, but in truth it was far too late. I was already nearly 20 weeks by the time I had found out. And besides which, I had seen my babies on the scan – there was no way I could get rid of them when I already loved them.
My parents took it only marginally better than Greg when I finally gathered the courage to tell them. I had all the same “stupid girl” and “ruined your lives” comments, combined with an extra dose of parental disappointment and guilt, finishing with them telling me that if I was old enough to behave like an adult, then I was old enough to face the adult consequences which come along afterwards – like children. After that point they pretty much withdrew all financial and emotional support and have barely had any involvement in our lives beyond the odd Christmas visit to see the kids.
That had all happened eighteen years ago, and now my babies were men themselves, in age if not behaviour. It would be fair to say the intervening years have not been plain sailing. I had to drop out of university, supposedly just for a few years until the children were older, but in truth it just became too hard to go back once the kids arrived. Greg had carried on with his studies, because as he said at the time: ‘it was an investment in our future, and it was only a matter of time before his work was ‘recognised’’; and I stayed home in our bedsit, scraped by on benefits and looked after our babies and Greg.
The first couple of years were really hard, not that I think we were anything special, just that babies are hard work anyway. Make that two babies with colic, teething, insufficient sleep and no money, and it didn’t make for a happy mix, but I consoled myself with the fact we were okay as a couple. We were healthy, Greg’s studies were going well, he told me, and I adored my babies. While we might not have had any money, we still had each other – we were coping, and Greg had stuck by me when he could have walked away. Greg’s sex drive had not diminished at all, kicking in a mere four weeks after the birth of the boys, but this time I was on the pill. We didn’t need any more stress in the system, I figured, until we had sorted ourselves out (it never happened). We had finally succumbed to intense societal pressure and got married after five years together, mainly due to the comments from Greg’s parents about ‘how it looked’, which had eventually been too much stress for Greg to handle. Our boys, Adam and Ethan, had been our pageboys, and while it had been a low-key event at the local registry office, I still thought it was a nice party at the time, despite tripping on my grand entrance and Greg rolling his eyes at me. Everyone told me I looked tired and to take care of myself as well as everyone else, but it was hard when there was so little time to do anything but cope.
When the boys finally started full-time school, I managed to get myself my job. At that time Greg had just been finishing his Masters in Art History, so that clearly needed to be his main focus, while I started first in an administrator position at the local doctors’ surgery during school hours, before moving on to reception work. Over the course of the years, my effort and loyalty were noticed. Consequently I was rewarded by the practice investing in me: allowing me to do some courses and helping me to move up the ranks, finally taking on some of the business management responsibilities. The increase in money had really helped at home and allowed us to move out of the bedsit and into a very small three-bedroom semi with a very large mortgage (those were the heydays when they leant money to people who couldn’t possibly afford to repay it), in what the estate agent had described as an ‘up and coming’ part of town. In other words, it was a bit of a dive area, but it was a step up from where we had been. At least the kids had a bit of a garden to play in while Greg had a small studio in the garden for his painting. It was actually a large shed with lots of windows, but he was happy, so we all were.
That tended to be the pattern in our married life – if Greg was happy, we were all allowed to be, but if he wasn’t, then God help us.
At the same point my career had begun to develop unexpectedly, Greg began to find that life after university was turning into a major disappointment. It seemed there was a surfeit of arts students fighting for positions and recognition, and Greg’s lack of willingness to compromise meant he refused to apply for anything which would get his foot in the door if he deemed it unworthy of his skills, regardless of our need for income. He continued to channel his energies into his paintings; convinced people would eventually see his brilliance and rightly reward him with commissions, only to find himself thwarted time and time again. With every knock back, I watched his bitterness seem to grow exponentially, and we all suffered for it at home, creating a toxic environment the family had to live in. In the meantime, I carried a full-time job and parenthood.
If I’m honest I would say Greg was, and is, resentful of any paltry success I may have had despite it being a million miles away from the writing career I had always imagined for myself. What I’ve found hardest, though, is that eventually his constant belittling of my achievements has rubbed off on my beloved boys. They believe his propaganda: that I have been a bad mother for prioritising my career above their care, making them feel neglected despite the need for income to put food on the table and presents in their stockings at Christmas. The tirade of criticism from Greg has become a chorus, as the boys are now old enough to join in, and I have become just too weary to fight back. The only constants in our married life as the years have ticked by have been sex and criticism, and sometimes (if I am really unlucky) both. Greg still likes sex most nights, and if I dare to suggest I might be tired, he claims it as his right. Most of the time I just let him, as he doesn’t need much involvement from me to get what he wants, but sometimes I get angry and resist. On those occasions Greg usually gets off on it. He actually seems to like it more when I put up some resistance; it brings a fire into his eyes which I don’t normally see there. The sex is passionate in a way that our sex life usually isn’t, and it’s on those rare occasions that I have very occasionally orgasmed. The first time had been such a surprise after so many years without that I had cried, partly due to guilt; regretting I had responded physically to such dominant, controlling behaviour and feeling I had failed womankind somehow by enjoying it, and partly because of the immense joy I felt from experiencing such a beautifully intense sensation and release. I don’t think Greg even noticed.
I have no idea how much the people around us, our so-called friends, know about the reality of our lives, but I put on a good show and have genuinely tried to do the best I can for all three of them, whatever their criticism of me. To most onlookers, I guess Greg and I seem to have a happy marriage with staying power. In truth, I just don’t think I have the energy to go anywhere.
If I think back, I believe it was when the boys had their eighteenth birthday that something inside of me finally clicked. My maternal duty felt like it was done, and somehow it seemed permissible to put myself first again. Hence my awakening: allowing myself to hear and listen to the words spoken by the lady on the T.V., followed by the resulting trip to the gym. While my critical inner demons tell me I am insane to think there is any point in trying to do anything about my life, that it’s essentially already over and that I should really just crawl into a corner and sit there quietly for the remainder of my days, there is still a small kernel of hope inside me which tells me to try, that I still have something to offer the world, that I am good at my job and could be good at other things if I tried.
As I head out the door of the gym to get back into my car, having dried and dressed myself back into the a
nonymous uniform of my daily life, it feels as if the kernel of hope has grown slightly, nourished by the time spent exercising my body, and I resolve to go again. I wave at Stuart, who is just leaving the building as I drive away, and I wince as I graze the hubcap on the kerb due to my lack of attention to the road. I glance in my rear-view mirror, hoping I got away without him seeing anything, only to catch sight of him grinning at my departing car.
Chapter 3
As I push my key into the front door I can hear the sound of raised voices coming from inside, and the positive glow I have been feeling dies a little. Greg is inside – he must have finished his work in the shed for the day – and so too is at least one of the boys, judging from what I can hear. I prefer it when there’s no one in when I get home; it’s just easier that way.
“Where have you been?” is the instant call to the sound of the front door opening. The gym has pushed my normal routine back by more than an hour, and Greg’s generally not good with any sort of change in his life or daily routine – not that it has happened often, to be fair.
“I went to the gym – I told you I was going to. You laughed at me, remember?” I remind him as I haul the bags of groceries I had picked up on my way home onto the side in the kitchen. The house looks a wreck, and despite having been there most of the day, Greg has done little about it, leaving it instead for me to do when I have finished preparing their meal, despite being the only one who has spent any time that day at paying work.
“What a joke!” Ethan says snidely as he walks in behind me, immediately rummaging in the bags to see what I have bought for tea.
“What is this shit?” he asks, pulling out the pasta sauce I had grabbed quickly from the shelf in the supermarket, knowing it could be ready quickly and hoping to head off exactly this sort of confrontation. I can’t help myself and sigh loudly in a rare outward sign of dissent, and he glances up at me in surprise.
“It’s dinner,” I say quietly. “If you don’t like it, then feel free to go out to the shop, buy yourself something different and cook it.” Ethan looks at me like I’ve grown horns suddenly, and even Greg looks up from the newspaper.
“What’s the matter with you?” Greg growls.
“Nothing. I’m just saying this is what I’m cooking. And if he doesn’t like it, then he’s old enough to do something about it himself.”
“Yeah, well, the stupid little shit managed to lose his job today, so he can’t afford to go and buy himself diddly squat,” he says scathingly, casting a disapproving parental stare at Ethan.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Ethan whines, sounding more like eight than eighteen.
“Whose fault was it, then, if you can’t manage to get your lazy arse out of bed in time for work? You’ve already had two warnings about the same thing,” Greg comments, warming to his theme, having clearly been round this particular conversational loop several times already, so having anticipated Ethan’s response. I reflect inwardly that it is somewhat ironic to hear Greg criticising others about their work ethic, when he has done precisely nothing over the last 18 years to support the family income; but I know better than to make any comment. Ethan, however, is far less circumspect.
“Oh yeah, that’s rich, coming from you!” I flinch at the words as Greg jumps instantly to his feet, years of rejection and resentment blazing in his eyes.
“Who are you, you little shit, to criticise me? You have no idea about what I have achieved in my work, despite everything I’ve had against me. I work hard every single day, and the fact that my work is not fully appreciated yet is not my fault. But it will happen, I assure you – one day I will see my work recognised for its importance, and you will see I was right.”
I roll my eyes before I can help myself, having heard this same tirade more times over the years than I can possibly count. Unfortunately for me, this time Greg catches sight of the expression and his anger ignites further. He lashes out at the bag of shopping, sending the sauce bottle smashing to the floor. “Fuck this,” he snarls, grabbing his coat and keys and slamming the front door on his way out. I know he’s going to the pub; he always has in times of stress. I also know in my heart that this tirade isn’t over, at least not where I’m concerned – he’ll be back to punish me later. I sigh again and look at Ethan, who is surveying the mess in the kitchen with a disgusted expression on his face.
“Stupid,” he says to no one in particular before walking out, as if this is somehow my fault for buying pasta sauce in the first place. I sigh again before starting the process of clearing up all the mess, reflecting that if my life had a soundtrack these days, the signature sound would be one long sigh.
The noise of my phone beeping with a text from within my bag distracts me from the mess momentarily, as I am just finishing wiping the last of the sauce off the floor tiles. I pause to root around in my bag and find my phone, which as usual has migrated right to the bottom, before I finally get the chance to look at the message. It’s from Emma. Emma is one of the few people from college I’m still in contact with, apart from Greg. Time and again, she has shown herself to be a true friend to me over the years; helping with the kids when they were younger every time I felt I had reached a point where I just couldn’t go on anymore. The kids called her Aunt Emma when they were little, and to be honest she has done far more for them than either Greg’s parents or mine – or Greg, for that matter. Emma was the only one who ever thought to take the kids off to the park just so I could have a bath or sleep for a couple of hours when they were small, after I was at my wits’ end having been awake all night with one or both of them.
More recently, now that the boys were older and out doing their own thing, Emma and I have started to enjoy more adult time together again. We meet up in the pub regularly on Tuesday evenings for a couple of drinks and a chance to vent – well, to let me vent, anyway. Emma’s life had taken a very different path to my own. She completely managed to avoid any serious distractions from boys while she was at university, gaining her law degree and finally going on to qualify as a solicitor, eventually being taken on by a local practice which specialised in family law. I like to think my example of how you can fuck up your life provided a focus for her and helped her to avoid the usual distractions life tends to throw at you, enabling her to achieve everything she wanted to. She met her husband, a barrister, through work five years ago, married him, and is now pregnant with their first child which is due in January. I really love Emma; she’s like the sister I didn’t have. She has always been attractive, the sort of friend who, when you’re with her, makes you feel all the more aware of your physical failings. She’s petite, slim, blonde and perky, and the guys (including Greg) have always just adored her – it seems something about her size brings out the protective side of most men. Her husband, Phil, is gorgeous, and when I first met him she literally had to tell me to close my mouth because I was gawping at him. He’s 6 ft 4 and dwarfs her tiny frame, but he has absolutely doted on her right from the beginning, and now their fairy tale is complete because they are having their much-wanted baby. Emma is planning to take a career break for a while in order to stay at home with the baby, made possible because Phil earns enough so they can get by on just the one income. It is all so far removed from my own experiences of love, marriage and parenthood that I would like to scream about the unfairness of it all occasionally, except that Emma is my best friend, and she is a good person and deserves to be happy. Just because for some reason fate has decreed I don’t, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be glad for my friends, does it?
I look down at the text:
C u later at the Anchor? I’ll be there about 8. E x
I quickly text her back:
Yes – can’t wait
I get back to my clearing up, throwing away all of the kitchen towels now covered in pasta sauce, before making myself a quick salad that had originally been planned to accompany my pasta, but now, by necessity, had to be the whole meal. I reflect that with my trip to the gym, followed by salad for t
ea, the weight will indeed soon be falling off me.
Chapter 4
The evening with Emma has been great – the perfect antidote to my shitty evening at home. Emma is absolutely delighted to hear about my trip to the gym, genuinely pleased to know I had been able to do something for myself for the first time in about... well, 18 years. She laughs a lot as I describe my entrance, raising an eyebrow at my description of the guy I took out.
“Are you blushing, Lil?!” she teases me. I am.
“It’s just the memory of utter humiliation in a public place yet again,” I fudge, but I don’t think it is. I keep getting flashes of that fine body, those eyes... I haven’t had a reaction to a man like that since I first met Greg. Unsurprisingly, that night after I get home, my dreams are filled with people with piercing blue eyes which seem to look straight into my soul.
*********
Emma has been so encouraging about the changes I’m trying to make that I feel motivated the next day to go to the gym again. And now after three weeks of regular gym visits, I’m actually beginning to see the impact on my body. It isn’t anything anyone else would notice yet, but I can feel the slight loosening of the waistband on my jeans, and there’s slightly more muscle tone all over my body.
As I walk in today, taking my usual care to avoid the mat, Stuart waves at me like I’m an old friend. It seems I’m already becoming a regular, and even the thin people have started to greet me now. I consider perhaps I had been wrong about their lack of friendliness in the beginning – it had nothing to do with what I look like and was more based on the fact they were as shy as I was, except that in skinny people it seems to come across as standoffishness, I now realise. With regular attendance and increased familiarity, I’m now becoming one of the gym ‘family’, and I’m finding I like them more than my own family most of the time. I am thinking those warm and fuzzy thoughts right up until the door to the female changing room is flung open, when I’m directly in front of it, smashing me on the forehead and momentarily stunning me so that my knees give way and I crumple to the floor. The blonde I had seen on my first visit exits the changing rooms with her bag slung over her shoulder, casting me a scathing look as she takes in my crumpled form on the floor.