by Barker, Ashe
“The crash site. Where your dad’s plane went down. He’s found it.”
“Ah, right.” I recall that he did promise to do that, set an investigator onto it. I suppose I’d assumed he’d call off his dog now that we weren’t together anymore. Apparently not.
“They built a school on it. A secondary school just outside Dundee. As far as we can make out their all-weather pitch is on the exact spot.” She sounds really excited about the discovery, though I’m not exactly sure why.
My response is made with my customary lack of enthusiasm. For anything. “Oh, oh well. No memorial garden then.”
I can’t help feeling a little disappointed. This has nothing really to do with Nathan, and if some good could possibly come out of the whole pile of shite it might have been some sort of closure over my father’s death. And Isabella too, of course. She should be another happy by-product although that’s a real struggle for me to see at this point.
“Yes, but that’s just it, you see. There is. Or there will be. Nathan got in touch with the head teacher, and the governors. They’ve agreed to let us put the memorial garden on the school site, close to the spot. Not actually on the all-weather pitch, obviously…”
“Obviously…” I mumble, fumbling to make sense of what’s happening.
“But alongside it. As near as possible. They want the students to help design it, and build it. And afterwards they’ll maintain it for us. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Er, yes. Wonderful.” Who’d have thought my mother would be so keen to immortalise my father? Maybe there’s a lesson here for me, something along the lines of time healing all wounds.
Yeah, right.
A thought occurs to me. “Who’s paying for it? I thought schools had no money to pay teachers, let alone build memorial gardens.”
“You are, it seems. Well, mostly. I’m chipping in too and so’s Nathan.”
“Me? How?”
“You left three grand with Nathan. He decided to spend it on this.”
I think for a moment. Three grand? Three thousand pounds? Then I remember, the night we went to the casino in Leeds and I won. I had handed him my winnings, intending it to repay some of the money he’d spent on my clothes, car repairs, and other expenses incurred in getting me naked and tied to his bed. I should have realised when he just accepted it without protest that he had a plan, something else in mind to do with it. Nathan always had plans, I suspect. Only I didn’t know what they were.
“So, anyway,” my mother continues, “Nathan wonders if we want to help design it too, be consulted, that sort of thing. I said we do. Well, I do. What about you, love?”
“Would I have to see him? Have any contact with him?”
“Well, yes, I suppose…”
“Then no, tell him no. You do what you want to do, but count me out.”
“But, Eva…”
“No, Mum. I’m sorry, but it’s no.”
“What about coming along with us when it’s finished, to have a look? Remember your dad? You’d do that, surely?”
I just press ‘end call’, and lie down on my bed to cry, remembering the night he planned that trip. The night I gave him my virginity, or rather foisted it onto him because he’d no idea that it was my first time. And back then, I’d been convinced it would be my mother refusing to go, not me.
I lie there, going over what happened, those wonderful, terrifying, glorious weeks. Wishing it could have been different. But it wasn’t, won’t ever be. I’d no alternative but to cut and run the way I did. My inter-personal stress coping mechanisms are near enough non-existent. There’s no way I could have talked it through with Nathan, explained how he’d hurt me, made any sort of a stand. Find a way to move on. I couldn’t even have started that conversation let alone come out of it with anything worth having.
Above all, though, I do bitterly regret the impact all this must have had on Rosie. I really did love that little girl and I know I dumped her too. She did not deserve that. My mother told me she was distraught when Nathan came home alone, with no explanation for my sudden departure. She couldn’t believe I’d really gone. It didn’t sink in until she saw my mother getting into a taxi, with my violin. The last my mother saw of her she was sitting on the front step at Black Combe, sobbing into Barney’s neck. That hurt, but I just added it to all the other hurts caused by Nathan. His tally just keeps on growing.
Eventually I couldn’t conceal my pregnancy from my mother and I begged her not to tell Nathan about it. She didn’t like it, didn’t like it at all. She tried for the next six months to persuade me to let him know about the baby but I couldn’t bear the thought of letting him anywhere near me or my pregnancy. As far as I know she respected my wishes. At any rate, he never turned up.
When I restarted my role in Ben’s research programme my online profile reflected it immediately and Nathan was on it, courtesy of Google alerts. He emailed Ben, demanding to be put in touch with me. Ben, bless him, lied for me. He told Nathan that I was working remotely as I would have been if I’d stayed at Black Combe, and he didn’t know my whereabouts. And Nathan bought that, luckily. And all the time I was bunked up in Ben’s spare room, getting larger and larger as my pregnancy progressed.
But Ben did agree to Nathan’s demands that he at least forward Nathan’s emails to me, even though I insisted that I didn’t want them. By mistake, I read the first few lines of the first one that found its way into my inbox. It was full of pleas that I get in touch, talk to him about what had happened, let him put things right. I stopped reading and deleted it, and set my junk email filter to divert every other one that came after straight to my trash. I emptied it regularly, just to make sure. There was nothing I wanted to say to him, and nothing he could tell me that would appease the bitter pain of his betrayal and his lies. Quite simply, he’d broken my heart.
And now, his eyes follow me everywhere, gazing at me from his daughter’s pretty little six-week-old face. I look into those stunning eyes—it’s obvious whose DNA is dominant here—and that harsh burn of betrayal, that jagged, vicious stab of shattered trust is once more my constant companion. I can’t look at Isabella without the whole traumatic mess flooding back, slicing into my hollow, aching, broken heart and haunting my empty, meaningless existence.
I’d thought I had it licked, more or less. Sort of. The gaping, agonising wound caused by Nathan’s betrayal and the shattering of my dreams, the tearing apart of my hopes and annihilation of my sense of self-worth were little short of crippling at first. I spent the first few weeks at Ben and Gina’s sobbing, or lying in the dark in their spare room, trying to make myself numb because the pain of feeling anything at all was too much, quite intolerable. Then, gradually, the paralysis lifted, faded. Just a little. Looking back, I think I came to regard it as a huge and grotesque picture hanging over my psychological mantelpiece, right there the whole time, in my face, filling my consciousness. Dominating every waking moment. Then, as time slowly passed, as the days dragged by and became weeks, I got used to seeing that horrific canvas there and was no longer taken by surprise every time—the shock was less acute. It was painful still, but I became accustomed to the pain, I knew what to expect from it. Then, as more weeks slid away, it was as though I managed to move the picture to the back of the room, still there and still dominant when I looked at it, which was frequently. But not in my face quite so much. As the weeks and months went by I shifted the canvas out into my mental hallway, and down into a dark corner of my memory. I still went there, quite frequently, drawn there by my masochism and self-pity, but I could get away from it sometimes. I sometimes even forgot about it completely. For an hour or two. And I sort of expected that eventually I’d manage to lug that bloody picture out to my psychological garage and dump it behind some load of old subconscious crap.
It would still be there, I didn’t believe I’d ever be rid of it entirely, but I wouldn’t have to look at it. I’d be able to live a normal life—or what I thought might pass for one, more or les
s, in my fucked-up world.
Chapter Eleven
I had a purpose. Survival.
And I was pregnant, and so I had responsibilities too. Before Isabella was born I had a reason to go on, a reason to take care of myself, a reason to try to rebuild my life. And in the days following her birth I was so completely overjoyed by her. She was so unbelievably beautiful, so perfect. And so totally mine. I was buoyed up by hopes, aspirations. I was excited about the future. Our future.
Then, out of nowhere, the deep, dark, despairing reality enveloped me. The black cloud descended and I realised the truth. Isabella doesn’t need me. No one needs me. Nathan didn’t need me, or at least not enough to stop him fucking anyone else. My mother’s kind and caring, but she doesn’t need me either. Same goes for Ben and Gina. I’m useless and worthless and just plain worn out. I can’t be bothered eating, I don’t sleep more than an hour or so at a time. I’m exhausted, listless. I can’t be bothered to do anything. Even getting dressed each morning’s a supreme effort.
My mother tries so hard, bless her. She constantly tries to jolly me along with promises that all new mothers feel like this, that it takes time to adjust to motherhood, that I’ll get over it. She even thinks I’ll get over Nathan, meet someone else eventually and be part of a proper family again. Not happening.
I feel the old distance opening up between us again, the brief closeness we managed to achieve round Nathan’s kitchen table just crumbling under the weight of my misery. My mother tries so hard to reach me, to help me, but I drift further from her every day.
And even if I had the remotest interest in any other man, my touch phobia is back with a vengeance. It was all I could manage to accept the medical help I needed during my pregnancy and at Isabella’s birth. My sexuality, so completely and gloriously awakened by Nathan, has gone well and truly into hibernation now. I’ve had a couple of experimental flirtations with masturbation, but even that’s an effort without Nathan’s active participation. I can just about manage a lukewarm orgasm if I rub my clit with enough determination, but it hardly seems worth the bother. I’ve considered relationships with other women, but I find myself completely lacking in enthusiasm for that. I might invest in a vibrator, but then again, probably not.
I’m tired now, tired of it all. Tired of being unhappy, being lonely. I want out.
Most of all, most debilitating of all is the guilt. I’m racked by guilt over my feelings—or lack of feelings—for Isabella.
I know I ought to love my beautiful little baby. It’s not her fault her father is a lying, cheating pond slug. It’s not her fault I don’t have a maternal bone in my body, not her fault that I’m a useless mother. She needs me, needs me to take care of her. And so I do take care of her as best I can. I perform my duty religiously. She’s always clean, warm, well fed. All her physical needs accounted for. I even force myself to pick her up, to cuddle her, because I know from all the books I’ve read on babies how much they need that human contact in the early weeks. And I’m determined to provide everything that she needs. For as long as it’s my responsibility.
Because I’ve made up my mind, made my decision. I can’t go on. I can’t be the mother she needs. I’m not the parent she needs. But I know a man who is.
Nathan might be a faithless rat and I might have every reason to hate him for what he did to me. I do hate him. But credit where it’s due. He’s the best father, the best parent I’ve ever met. He loves Rosie, and he’ll love Isabella too. He’ll care for her in a way that I know I can’t, in ways I don’t even want to. But he will. I only have to ask him to.
So, I’m going back. Back to Black Combe with Isabella. My plan is a good one. Perfect in its simplicity. I’ll leave Isabella with Nathan. I’ll explain the situation and ask him to take care of her, to accept her as a sister for Rosie. My precious gift to him, as Rosie was Louisa’s gift. Then I’ll leave, free again, free to do whatever I choose to do with whatever’s left of my miserable excuse for a life.
* * * *
After a two hundred mile motorway sprint Miranda chugs along the country lanes cheerfully, climbing the hills above Haworth. She’s galloping up these steep inclines much more perkily now than she did almost a year ago when we made this climb in the pitch black, pouring rain. Her new engine and reconditioned gearbox have given her a new lease of life. Pity the same treatment won’t work for me.
If anything, this return to the place where I was so happy, the place I thought would be my home forever, is the most painful thing I’ve had to do since that awful day when the lovely Susanna of the long blonde hair and shapely legs waltzed into my world and smashed it to pieces in a matter of moments. Close to tears, overwhelmed by the sharp, twisting stab of grief and loss, as I so often am these days, I pull into a passing place on the narrow lane and stop the car. Before Nathan I might have been morose and joyless a lot of the time, but I never used to be weepy. I seldom seem to stop crying now. Blindly I clamber out of Miranda and shuffle around the bonnet to lean on the shoulder-high dry stone wall, looking out over the Haworth moors. Not for the first time I can so readily appreciate how this landscape inspired and nurtured the literary genius of the Brontës, the bracing exhilaration of the wild, wuthering heights and soothing, cushioned cradle of the timeless valleys. I gaze around the rugged tranquillity surrounding me and can feel the closeness of Black Combe, only about four miles away. I can feel the tug, and know I’ll be arriving there in a few minutes’ time.
I glance over my shoulder at Isabella, asleep still but starting to stir in her baby carrier safely strapped into Miranda’s tiny little rear seat. I may be a crap mother but I get the safety stuff right. The motion of the car had lulled her to sleep long before we reached the M25, and there’s hardly been a sound from her during the four and a half hour drive up here. I didn’t tell my mother what I was planning to do—I couldn’t face the row that would have definitely ensued. She adores Isabella, would never have agreed to my abandoning her, even it is with Nathan. Does it really count as abandonment, I wonder, if it’s with the child’s father?
The thought is uncomfortable, unwelcome. More guilt to pile on myself in the aching, empty months and years to come, I daresay. For now, I push it away.
I raise my eyes once more to gaze over the rolling moorland beauty, the kaleidoscope of late spring and early summer shades all tumbling together down the distant hillsides. God, I’ve missed this place. Maybe I could still come to live here…
But best not. The chance of running into Nathan or Rosie or even my little Isabella sometime in the future would always be there, haunting me. Even if I never saw any of them again their presence so nearby would taunt and torment me. Perhaps I could settle somewhere similar—the Yorkshire Dales or the Peak District, or the Lakes…
My mind slips away again, my head empties, and I’m staring absently at the horizon. I just can’t be bothered planning for a future I have no interest in, no energy to pursue.
Eventually Isabella’s angry squalling from the back of the car drags me back to reality. She’s fully awake now, bored and hungry. I really shouldn’t have stopped the car, I suppose—she’d have slept the rest of the way there. The next couple of hours will not be easy and I know I’m going to need her to work her own brand of charm offensive to smooth the way. She seems to worm her way effortlessly into every heart but mine, but even so I think it’ll be better not to turn up at Black Combe with a squalling baby. Sunny disposition and pretty dimples are what’s needed so I’ll have to do something about her, see to her immediate wants and needs.
I quickly mix her a feed using warm, sterile water I have in a small Thermos flask and the last remaining sterilised bottle in my bulging baby bag. Whoever knew such a small being would require such a lot of luggage just to make a trip to the shops, let alone a four hour car journey? Still, I came prepared. The boot is full of her paraphernalia—clothes, a pack of disposable nappies, two tins of SMA baby milk, a few favourite toys. And a picture of me, taken last week in one
of those DIY passport photo booths. I’ve also rammed in my violin, which is intended as a present for Rosie. It seems the least I can do.
I quickly check the temperature of Isabella’s bottle and sit in the back with her to feed her. I don’t get her out of her seat, but she curls her tiny fingers around mine on the bottle. I can’t even bring myself to smile at her as she gazes up at me, her lovely deep brown eyes full of trust. I know it’s my imagination. She’s only a few weeks old, has no idea what’s happening here, who I am, what trust is, even. I wonder how long it will take for her to forget me completely. Not long, I expect. Soon, I promise her silently, she’ll be surrounded by all the love she will ever need—she’ll be blanketed and cocooned in it as she deserves to be, not picking at the scraps I can offer. One day, she’ll know what I did and why, and she’ll thank me for it. I hope. I do so hope…
Twenty minutes later her belly’s full, her nappy’s clean, she’s got her favourite soft toy with the most incredibly interesting scrunchy ears on her lap. She’s tugging at those ears, giggling to herself and gurgling with contentment. Just the sort of demeanour calculated to make a brilliant first impression at her new home. I glance at my watch. It’s nearly two o’clock. I’ve timed our arrival carefully, to avoid Nathan and Rosie. I can’t bear to actually meet up with either of them. Rosie doesn’t get home from school until after half past three, by which time I’ll be long gone. And Nathan will be in Leeds. It’s Tuesday today. He often works at home on Mondays and Fridays, having a distinct fondness for long weekends, but is always in his office mid-week. I’m sure he won’t be here at Black Combe. I’m so completely confident that he’ll accept Isabella that I don’t feel a need to meet with him, discuss it face to face. No need to ask him in advance.
Even so, my heart is thumping as I make that final right turn into the lane leading up to the massive Black Combe gate. This time, though, I won’t run into it. This time the gate will swing open as I approach, courtesy of the remote control Nathan gave me when I got Miranda back from Jack’s garage all those months ago and which I’ve never taken out of Miranda’s glovebox. Somehow, I’m not sure why, it seems so vitally important to me that I can get in, that I don’t have to wait outside asking to be let onto the property.