Three days after the birth, Stuart arrived. I sensed immediately that things weren’t much better between us; in fact they seemed worse than ever.
‘Where is he then?’ Stuart demanded and I pointed to the Perspex cot next to my bed, where our son was sleeping soundly. He looked at him and nodded a couple of times.
‘I’ve named him Callum,’ I said.
‘Right, well, when you get out of here we’ll get his birth certificate sorted out,’ he said as he pulled up a chair to sit by my bed. For a while he just sat next to me, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together in front of him, rocking. It was obvious he didn’t want to be here. Once, I had felt I could tell him anything, but now we had nothing to say.
I noted he was wearing a new black-and-white leather jacket.
New clothes? I thought. That’s odd. Why is he buying himself new clothes? I thought he was broke.
‘So, Mum tells me everything went fine,’ he said eventually. ‘And you’re breastfeeding? That’s good. It’ll help your stomach to go down.’
I felt awkward and uncertain as he stared at the other mums on the ward. He didn’t seem interested in me at all and I didn’t know what to say to engage him.
‘Look, erm, not many people know about the baby right now,’ he started.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, it just wouldn’t help with the divorce, would it? But I’ve bought a flat in Glasgow for us to stay in when you come back and I’m trying to stay on good terms with Maria to make everything go smoothly. We had a meeting the other day.’
‘Why did you need to have a meeting with her?’ I asked quickly. I’d thought things were finished between them.
‘Oh, you’re not going to start giving me a hard time, are you?’ he snapped at me. His anger sprang up so quickly I was cowed into silence.
As we sat together, saying nothing, I thought over what he’d said – about the flat in Glasgow he’d bought for us. Sadly, it reminded me a little of our old plans. I’d been so determined after catching him out in his lies to try to make my life my own after the baby was born – but, as I looked at Callum in his crib, I realized that I now had no control over my life anymore. What could I do? I was only sixteen, I had nobody I could turn to and no one I could rely on. Though it was Stuart who had put me in this position, he was also the only one offering help: a place to stay, a future of sorts. It felt like I had no choice but to do as I was told.
Twenty minutes later, he was gone. He hadn’t even picked up his son.
A few days afterwards, Stuart came to take me back to his mother’s house; I needed another week to recover before I could fly back to Scotland. We registered the birth and then he insisted all three of us go to the pub, to wet the baby’s head.
It was all smoky in there. I was sure it wasn’t good for the baby, but Stuart insisted we stay so that he could have a pint. Finally, we got back to Gladys’s – she was out shopping. Clocking the empty house, no sooner had Stuart put down the cot in the living room than he turned to me and said: ‘Right, come on, let’s get your clothes off.’
Really? He wanted sex?
‘What? Now?’ I asked quietly, taken aback. Before the birth, as my body had grown fatter, he’d left me on my own, not even visiting the flat in Edinburgh for weeks at a time. He had made it very clear that his attraction to me visually was very important. Now, it seemed he wanted to get back to ‘normal’.
‘Did you know that sex is the first thing women refuse when they have children, did you know that?’ said Stuart evenly. ‘You’re not refusing me, are you?’
I felt so weak, but at the same time I didn’t want to upset him. His anger frightened me and it seemed his fuse was shorter than ever.
‘I’m really sore,’ I began, trying to plead my case. ‘It hurts when I go to the toilet to pee. I don’t think I want this right now. Not yet.’
‘I’m not asking you to think,’ said Stuart crossly, yanking me into the bedroom and closing the door. ‘You haven’t had stitches, so you have nothing to worry about.’
It was the same situation it had always been. Why did I think I should have any say over what happened to my body? I should have known better than to speak out against his demands. After all, I had learned from a young age: when men wanted to have sex with me, it happened, no matter what I wanted or what I said.
Stuart undressed me and then pushed me down onto the bed, where he had rough, painful sex with me. It was so sore, I could barely move. I just lay there, obediently, cowed into place. How had the last two months of my life spiralled out of control? The one thing that I thought I had control over Stuart with was sex – now he didn’t care about my feelings. There was no life in his eyes, no passion, no excitement. He was hurting me and he had never done that before. It was almost as if he was punishing me for giving birth and putting him in the situation he was now in. That was it – he was punishing me for his situation, and he was certainly letting me know.
I woke up in the dark four hours later in terrible pain, alone, with a crying baby. The sheets were covered in blood. There was a note on the sideboard: ‘Gone to the pub with Mum. Make sure you clean these sheets. If there ever is a “next time”, make an effort!’
Chapter 10
Neither Here Nor There
A week later, I arrived back in Edinburgh. Stuart was waiting for me in the airport arrivals hall, leaning casually against a pillar, spinning his car keys around on his finger. As I struggled through with my two-week-old son, the carrycot and all the other baby stuff, he didn’t make a move to come and help. On the contrary, as I got nearer, he turned and moved away so that I had to follow him. There was no kiss on the cheek to welcome me home; no sign of excitement at seeing his son.
This does not bode well, I thought.
In the car, he barely spoke. It was more than I could bear so after fifteen minutes I blurted out: ‘Why are you so quiet?’
There was a slight, uncomfortable pause. Then Stuart turned to me and said: ‘I’m back with Maria.’
It was a shock and I burst out crying.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Maria and I have talked this over. We’ve agreed to let you stay in the flat until you get on your feet and we’ll give you fifty quid a week for expenses. That should see you through until you sign on for housing benefit.’
He was so cold, so calculating – he had it all worked out.
‘I’m not staying in your flat,’ I sniffed angrily.
‘Yeah, you are!’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Look, you’ve just had a baby, all your hormones are haywire. Give it a thought, but I’m back with my wife.’
I couldn’t speak; I was crying too hard. That was it. I was officially a loser, a dreg of society who would soon be leaching off everyone else, claiming benefits. Everyone who had said ‘I told you so’ was right. I could see my mum and dad’s faces now, the regulars of the hotel shaking their heads as they stared into their pints, commiserating with Dad’s story. What a let-down I’d been, how much promise I had shown, how I had thrown it all away. And, to top it all, Stuart had lied to me and I had fallen for it! He clearly didn’t care about his son or what became of him, and just wanted rid of us as quickly as possible.
‘Ah, for fuck’s sake, Dawn!’ He lost his temper. ‘You knew I was married and you tried to trap me by having my baby but it’s not going to work!’
Through my heaving sobs, his words sank in and left me stunned. I tried to trap him? He was the one who had insisted on not wearing condoms and trying for a child!
‘I’m back with my wife,’ he went on, talking down to me patronizingly as if I was a child. ‘It was always going to happen. You’re young and we have nothing in common. I already have a family and you knew this. So we had our little fling and now it’s over. I want you to stay at the flat, stay away from us and everything will be fine. I let you put my name on the birth certificate – but don’t think it means anything. GOD, STOP CRYING!’
He hit the steeri
ng wheel in frustration and I was shocked into silence.
Without another word, he drove me to his new flat – this was where we were meant to be starting our new life together. Instead, I was now a single parent with no money, no prospects and no qualifications. It couldn’t get any worse.
‘Right, I’m off,’ he said after taking the cot upstairs.
‘Where?’
‘Dawn, you don’t need to know where I go anymore because we’re not together. But, actually, if you must know, I’m off to Amsterdam with Maria; we need a holiday and now that you’re back in town, we need to get away from all the eyes.’
It was like my insides had been cut up. I just didn’t know what to do anymore. I wanted to run away from everything – but I couldn’t because now I had a two-week-old baby to look after. At every point in our relationship together, Stuart had convinced me to do things that just made my life worse and worse. To sleep with him; to stop studying; to have a baby when I wasn’t much more than a child myself. He’d broken every promise he’d ever made and his latest attempt to rewrite history, accusing me of tricking him into having the baby, made me realize once and for all that I’d run out of options with him.
But without Stuart, where could I go?
There was only one thing for it.
‘Dawn?’ Dad answered the phone at the hotel.
‘Dad,’ I said in a very small voice. ‘Dad, I’m in Glasgow. I’m not with Stuart though – that’s over. Will you come and get me because I’ve got to get out of here?’
‘Course I will.’
Dad didn’t say anything when he came to collect me that afternoon. It was the middle of the week, mid-afternoon, so there was nothing much on at the hotel. Mum was shopping in town so she didn’t know anything yet.
‘So, where’s ma grandson, then?’
I showed Dad up the stairs, to where Callum was sleeping soundly.
‘He’s got a really big nose, hasn’t he?’
Dad didn’t say anything else, just carried all my things into his battered old Saab. It was bad enough getting taken home by Dad, having to admit I needed help, but when I walked back into the family home, I was enveloped by a crushing sense of failure. Here I was, back in my old room with my old single bed, surrounded by all my old things. It felt like walking back in time – but everything had changed.
‘So, has the penny dropped, love?’ asked Dad with a twinkle in his eye. I just nodded sadly, feeling a sob welling up inside.
‘Here, come here,’ he said and wrapped me in a big bear hug. ‘Don’t worry, Dawn. It’ll be alright. It’ll all come right in the end.’
Later, when I heard Mum’s key in the door, I felt myself tense up. At first, though, she seemed genuinely happy to see me and to meet her grandson.
‘Oh he’s lovely,’ she cooed at him. ‘What are you doing here, Dawn?’
Dad answered for me: ‘She’s moved back. I picked her up this afternoon. She’s not with him anymore. She’s with us now.’
I could see that this did not sit well with Mum. She pursed her lips, blinked a couple of times and said slowly: ‘I see . . .’
Then she straightened up and put a hand on her hip: ‘Well, I’m not looking after him if that’s what you were thinking. Don’t think you’re coming home for an easy ride. You’ll have to work; you’ll have to earn your keep.’
Here we go . . . I knew my mother and I knew she was only just getting started.
‘Don’t think I’m going to babysit him,’ she went on shrilly. ‘And you, young lady. You’ll have to figure out what you’re going to do with your life.’
‘We don’t need this conversation now,’ I said hesitantly, trying to keep the peace. ‘You just walked through the door.’
‘We do need this conversation – otherwise when are we going to have it?’
‘Urgh, forget it. I’m going to my room!’
As I stormed off, I felt every one of my sixteen years, but I was no longer a typical teenager.
It was strange living with my parents again. So many things were just as I had left them, when I’d gone off to London with my head full of dreams that Stuart had planted there. But so many things were different, too. Now there were four of us, with Callum.
Luckily, he was a very good baby. He slept soundly in my bed from the very start, didn’t cry much and never seemed to get ill or nappy rash. He couldn’t have been easier but, even so, I struggled to show him the love I knew he deserved. After everything I had been through, I didn’t know if having Callum had been the worst mistake of my life; when I looked at him, I saw only a lifetime of drudgery ahead.
I told myself firmly not to get too attached – after all, if I was going to try and pick up the pieces of my ruined life, I would have to have him adopted. With Stuart out of the picture, my head cleared and I returned to what I thought was a sensible, straightforward plan. I knew I couldn’t go back to school as a single mum, it just wouldn’t work. My parents were pretty resolute about not helping me, refusing to take him for a couple of hours here and there, so adoption seemed the only answer. Mum had made it very clear that he was my responsibility alone, and as for Dad, well, he’d hardly been a model parent the first time round!
My parents stuck rigidly to their working routine at the hotel, which meant I was stuck at home pretty much all day and night. The highlight of my day was usually when Simone dropped in after school.
Simone adored Callum. Her eyes lit up whenever she saw him and she loved to pick him up and plant soft little kisses all over his head. Frequently she turned up with little Babygros for him because she loved to dress him up. I often thought she was more motherly than me.
Together, we’d stroll through the park with Callum in his buggy and stop at the gates for ice cream. One day, on the way back from getting ourselves a 99 each, I confided in her about my plans to have him adopted.
‘Oh, but you can’t!’ she said, wide-eyed. ‘He’s adorable. How could you abandon him like that?’
‘I’m not abandoning him,’ I said defensively. ‘I can’t look after him on my own. What am I supposed to do? Stuart doesn’t want him. My parents don’t want him. How am I meant to provide for him if I’ve got no qualifications? I mean, what choice do I have?’
As far as Callum was concerned, Stuart had more than once reminded me on that journey home in the car from the airport that he didn’t really want to get involved with a child that age. ‘When he’s about two, he’ll be more interesting and have his character,’ he’d said. He thought his input for a child so young would be a waste of his time. ‘When the boy is old enough to know who I am I’ll catch up with him,’ he told me.
One morning I came downstairs late, just as Mum was putting down the phone.
‘That was him,’ she said, gesturing at the telephone.
‘Who?’ I asked, groggy after a sleepless night with Callum.
‘Stuart! I told him not to call again!’
The calls continued though. Stuart would always call in the mornings because he knew that my mum would be at the hotel doing the breakfasts. She had made her feelings about Stuart pretty clear from the start.
‘I don’t want you speaking to him. Don’t take anything from him. Cut your ties with him completely.’ Of course, she had seen all this coming. But although she thought I’d been foolish, she still despised Stuart for stringing me along and leaving me alone with his baby.
And then, one afternoon, I answered the phone in the hallway.
‘Please don’t hang up!’ said Stuart at once.
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m so sorry, Dawn.’ His next words made my mouth drop open in surprise. ‘Look, I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life. I still love you. I want to be with you. I only went back to Maria to save the business but she’s tricked me and I can’t believe I fell for her plan. It was all a big mistake. I’m so sorry, Dawn. I’ve left her for good now.’ And then he wheeled out an old trick: ‘I promise.’
‘I don’t believ
e you,’ I replied dully. I’d heard his lines too many times before.
‘It’s true. I promise.’
‘Yeah, well, even if it is, I don’t want to see you again. I hate you. You’ve been horrible to me and you lied to me. It’s over, Stuart. I’m going to put Callum up for adoption, then I’m going back to school.’
There was a strange noise on the line then. Was he crying? I couldn’t believe it. He’d only seen Callum for a few hours his whole life. He had no bond with him at all.
Even so, he said: ‘You can’t put Callum up for adoption.’
‘I can. I’m only sixteen and I’m not going to be a single parent.’
‘I love you, Dawn. And I want to get back with you and I want us all to be a family together.’
‘How can I trust you?’
‘I give you my word,’ he said solemnly. ‘Please, Dawn. Please give me one last chance. I won’t let you down again, I promise. Please.’
Is this the truth? After so many lies and let-downs I wondered if I could truly trust him. But he was begging me – I could hear his desperation and his passion even on the phone. I felt the armour I had built up around me start to crack.
And it wasn’t just Stuart’s words that were chiselling at me, wearing my defiance and my determination down. In the past few weeks, Callum and I had become much closer: I was starting to fall for his cheeky little smiles and the way he held his pudgy hands out for cuddles. I was starting to miss him when he was asleep, and had to fight the urge to wake him up. The past few weeks, I had finally admitted to myself that I didn’t really want to put Callum up for adoption. I just hadn’t thought that there was any way of keeping him on my own.
Could we really make this work? I wondered. Despite all the lies from Stuart, deep down I wanted this more than ever. I wanted to keep my little boy, I really did, and part of me still longed for that happy-ever-after that Stuart had once promised me. Hearing him beg for my forgiveness, his voice soft and kind, like it used to be, brought it all back to me. I played with the telephone cord, thinking it over.
‘Okay,’ I said reluctantly, in the end. ‘One last chance.’
I Own You Page 12