Invisible Child

by Mary Hayward

  “Yeah, it’s fine, I doona know what they’re on about.” He avoided my eye and started picking the skin on his fingers.

  “Can’t you see your managers are trying to find a solution to some problem here?”

  I worried if there might have been complaints about him, and I didn’t want him to lose his job. I wondered if he was expecting to get the sack, and trying to prepare me for it, like a student before an exam.

  “You know nothing about what’s going on at work. How can you know what they’re on about when you’re nay there?”

  I just let him rant.

  “I’m tha’ one with the top grades in ‘A’ Levels. No’ you! So doon’na keep telling me what they’re doin’—yer know nothing aboot it.” His Scottish accent got thicker as his fuse got shorter.

  “I’m just trying to help you Billy,” I backed off.

  To me it was obvious what they were doing, but I didn’t understand why Billy didn’t see it.

  A few weeks later I joined Billy as he performed a gig at The Woolpack pub. It wasn’t far from the house, so we walked there. It was late at night when we both strolled back. We hadn’t got more than one hundred yards when, without warning, he lashed out with his right arm, caught me a sideways blow to the stomach that lifted my feet from under me, and left me sprawling on the ground.

  He just walked off and said, “Fuck you!”

  I lay there: shocked. Writhing in agony, I clutched my stomach struggling for breath. I lay there gulping air like a drowning fish, floundering as the pain locked my mind. I only thought about breathing and my handbag—there was no room for rationalisation or anger. Boy, did that hurt! My ribs felt as if the splinters were piercing my lungs with every gasp.

  After some time I raised myself from the cold damp paving stones, clung to the railings by the stream, and rested. Was I bleeding? I didn’t see any blood, but then it was dark. I wandered over to a nearby street lamp.

  I was all right, only a grazed knee when I fell. I slid my hand to my ribs, feeling like a blind man. They seemed to be still there. “Ouch.” I kept my thoughts like my breathing; shallow and calm.

  This was new. There was no argument, no run up to the spluttering smouldering discontent; instead, it was the emotional explosion of a suicide bomber! One moment strolling along after a successful evening, the next, I was on the floor. Why did he do it? I never found out why. I was simply left to accept it was part of life with Billy.

  What was I to do—accept it as part of life with Billy? No, no, no! What was I saying?

  If he thought he could do this to me and just walk away without a fight, then he had picked the wrong woman. I wasn’t a doormat, and he was not going to wipe his boots on me.

  The following morning I felt ill. I started vomiting. I worried about all the bruising around my stomach and ribs. I felt myself panic, flushing over my face and chest. I wondered if he had done some serious damage.

  I rang the doctors and made an appointment straight away. I went and saw Dr King. She arranged a blood and urine test. The following week I went back to see the doctor. She told me I was expecting a baby, and I was nearly two months pregnant.

  I telephoned Billy to tell him. He was overjoyed, said he had this vision of five children around a big kitchen table, playing happy families with the chatter of little voices, dolls houses and footballs; although I had my private thoughts. But for now I shared his dream about the little girl I had always wanted.

  I was eight months pregnant when the next incident occurred.

  Billy was performing at a gig, playing his guitar with another guy who lived nearby. Roz had been married to Jimmy as sweethearts since they were at school. She always thought he was a dead ringer for Elvis Presley, and I have to say there was a resemblance.

  Billy and Jimmy shared an ambition to make it as singers, and became good friends. Roz was nice—she didn’t live far from my house, and we would often be seen at the gigs as a foursome.

  On one such night, as the gig came to a close, and as I wandered over to a table at the side of the stage, Jimmy found some chairs for us whilst Billy was clearing away his sound gear. Jimmy paid me a lot of attention, doing more fussing than a wasp on a jam jar. I didn’t think anymore about it, especially since I was so pregnant, and I was huge!

  I bade Roz and Jimmy goodnight, and Billy and I strolled to the house. Turning the key in the front door, I stepped into a heavy fist that caught me, tearing into my arm like I had just been shot. It was so sudden I fell backwards in shock.

  “You will be put in prison if you hit me whilst I am pregnant!” I screamed.

  For a moment I thought that was the end of the matter, but as we stumbled into the house, he resumed hitting me, and then, unexpectedly he stopped and it went quiet.

  I ran up the stairs to the bedroom. He followed me.

  “I’ll show you!” he shouted above the sound of splintering timber. I watched in disbelief as the last of the shelves were ripped from the walls and thrown into a heap on the bedroom floor.

  I didn’t know what to say anymore. I went into Colin’s bedroom, but he followed me in.

  “I’m going to call the police.”

  He started laughing, then smacking me round the face and punching my body. Then, when he had enough, he staggered off and went to sleep. I was left to nurse my wounds.

  The next morning I saw an enormous bruise on the upper part of my right arm. I covered it with a bandage to hide it. It was part of my baggage, to keep the secret life from the outside world. I was frightened of Billy and I didn’t know what would happen if others found out.

  I wandered out to the front step to bring in the milk. I forgot the bandage still wrapped on my arm. My neighbour caught my attention.

  “Mary?” she said, “The noise last night.” She probed: “I was worried about you. Did he hit you?”

  “No,” I said, “we were having a bit of a discussion and I lost my footing and fell down, hitting my arm on a balustrade on the stairs.”

  “You sure you are all right?”

  “Yes, don’t worry, I’m fine.” I covered up my bruises. Then turning awkwardly I shuffled back inside.

  Billy was so charming and kind most of the time, I didn’t understand what I had done wrong.

  When he came home from work the next day he was full of apologies, and said he was sorry. I just looked at him and gave him a wide berth; there was nothing I felt I could say to him. I didn’t understand any of it. I was numb.

  I didn’t dwell on it anymore. I switched into a form of coping strategy and tried to do what I could to survive; my childhood had taught me that!

  Billy burst in on the scene with a new dishwasher and a plumber ready to install it there and then. He kept saying he was sorry and that it was a present for me, and it wouldn’t happen again; but I still never got an answer as to why he had done it in the first place; that bugged me more than anything else.

  I was being told, by some of his friends at work, that he was having loud arguments with his colleagues, apparently over quite trivial things. I was told he would raise his voice and start shouting at them. They would apparently absent themselves from the workplace, to leave him with his animated rant and no doubt worrying about their own safety.

  In the end, the company had to sack him and soon he was searching for another job.

  I thought that perhaps it was the stress at work, and that had been responsible for the violence, and although I was used to rows and arguments in my childhood, I was starting to seriously consider what was going on in my life. I sat in the bedroom and rang a policeman friend.

  Barry was an old trusted friend from way back. He said it wouldn’t get better. He told me that once they cross that line, they don’t go back. I sunk down on the bed. I knew inside that what he had told me was true.

  I thanked him for his advice and I promised to stay in touch.

  I searched for a job for Billy that I thought would get him out of the office. Like my previous husband Terry
, I thought that he might be better equipped for a job as a sales representative, and on the road on his own.

  Within weeks I had found a job in the local paper working for Thorn Lighting as a sales electrical lighting engineer, in Cambridge Road. I did as last time, prepared him for the interview, and he got the job.

  Soon Lindsay, my daughter was born at Chase Farm Hospital, Enfield—the little girl I always wanted. She was everything I wished for—a healthy eight pounds, with dark hair, blue eyes and a smooth tanned complexion.

  Now I hoped that things would improve between Billy and myself. I hoped that a new baby would glue us together.

  My son Colin was now twelve and this triggered a rule in the social housing legislation. This prevented the sharing of different sex children, where there was more than a twelve-year age difference. I had a daughter, and suddenly I qualified for a three-bedroom home.

  It was a new start. We had everything going for us, and I hoped that things would change, as if somehow the old house had been responsible for all our troubles.

  Things settled down to routine. Lindsay was growing fast, Colin was getting on well at school, and Billy was doing okay at Thorn Lighting enjoying the use of the company car, and then I felt a lump in my breast.

  The Doctor examined me and confirmed that I had a lump. He told me that these things happened after just having a baby and he wanted it removed. I waited in the surgery and listened to a flurry of telephone calls. I was told I had to have X-rays to check, and then I would probably need a small operation at the Chase Farm Hospital to remove the lump.

  I didn’t understand how he could tell me that these things happen after childbirth, as if it were to be expected, then frantically phone the hospital to book me in for an operation.

  I went into hospital for the operation on the day that we were due to move to our new home.

  35

  New Home, New Baby

  ARRIVING FROM THE HOSPITAL into my new home, I sat helplessly like some broken butterfly. Luckily the lump was benign, although it signalled changes in my breast tissue. I held myself and curled up on my bed, surrounded by the musty boxes of cardboard that littered the house.

  Lindsay was at my mum’s, so I didn’t have to worry about where she was at least.

  The living room was full; the hall was full; the kitchen was full; the baby’s bedroom was full; my bedroom was full; Colin’s bedroom was full; even the bathroom was full. With my arm all strapped up, the house piled high, there was nothing I could do but just sit on the boxes and look at it all. Billy hadn’t done anything.

  I sat down and cried. My heart sank at the enormity of the task ahead.

  Turning to the church, I hoped they would influence Billy to bring some discipline to my chaotic lifestyle and curb the violence within him. I called upon my church friends to help me. They collected Lindsay and fetched her back from my mum’s house, and then bought some basic shopping.

  They were brilliant! They unpacked and got rid of all the boxes for me. I was able to start to clear the mess and make sense of my new home. At least the bathroom and kitchen were in a functional order, both the dishwasher and washing machine plumbed in, and the kitchen shelves stocked with food. They cleared the worktop, tabletops, chairs and the sofa so that by the time Colin had bounced in from school, the house was starting to appear more like something normal.

  Naively I thought that Billy would be pleased to see the house all cleared when he got home. Not a bit of it! All he wanted was his dinner on the table, and when that wasn’t available, he just sloped off down the pub at the end of the road, like I had seen my father do many times before. Colin and I were left to get on with it.

  Billy appeared back some hours later with a kebab, which he sat and ate in the kitchen before disappearing upstairs to bed without saying a word.

  Pressing redial, Billy questioned me about the phone calls I had made. He wanted to know who had called me, and my movements during the day, as if he didn’t trust me anymore. I started to feel oppressed in my own home and I felt uneasy about him; it didn’t feel right to me.

  Terry, my former husband, was never like this. I kept wondering what I was doing wrong

  I walked to the train station to the phone box and spoke to ‘Refuge’, a London charity for women founded in 1979.

  “Hello,” the woman said, “My name is Joan. How can I help you?”

  “Hello,” I nervously bit my lip.

  “What’s your name?”

  “M... Mary.” I wasn’t sure I wanted to be identified.

  “Well hello, Mary. Where are you phoning from?”

  “A call box by the station.”

  “Are you safe calling from there?”

  “Yes, my husband is at work.” The truth was I didn’t know where he was.

  “Would you like to tell me how I can help you today?”

  “I am just making enquiries and would like some advice.”

  My life tumbled out and I told her about the first year of bliss, when Billy was so gentle and kind. I didn’t understand why now? Why had the violence only started after a year? I wanted to know what was wrong with me.

  “Mary, love. You’re not doing anything wrong—it’s a pattern they all go through,” she said. “A husband and wife should never hit each other—it is wrong. Tell me, Mary, does he give you anything after he hits you?”

  “Yes, he buys a present.”

  “Quite a big one—say a washing machine or something like that?”

  “Yes—a dishwasher—he bought me a dishwasher.”

  “Does he get upset that he has spent so much money that he can’t afford?”

  “Yes he does—complains that I made him do it.”

  “Then falling over himself to be helpful until things settle back to being normal? Until you think that things are all right?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly right.”

  “Does he tell you it’s all your fault?”

  “Yes, but sometimes I think that it must be my fault because he says that I provoke him.”

  “He must not hit you, regardless of how angry he gets. Now listen to me carefully, dear. This is what you must do. Each time he attacks you, go to the doctors and get him to record your injuries. You will find that there will be a cycle of attacks, perhaps every week, or six weeks, or months or so.”

  “No, no. It’s not like that. No, you don’t understand, he doesn’t hit me every week! I’m not a battered wife—I am not abused or anything. I only rang for advice.”

  “Yes, you are abused.”

  “I’m not.” I closed my eyes and put my hand to my face. “You don’t understand.” I couldn’t stop the sobbing, “I don’t want my marriage to end, I don’t want to!” The tears washed away my words.

  “Mary, now listen to me dear. Mary, are you there? Mary, do you hear me?”

  “Yes,” I sniffed. “I’m still here.” I wiped my nose.

  “Mary, love, stay with me, I know it’s hard for you to accept, and I can hear you getting upset. Are you hearing me, Mary?”

  “Yes, I hear what you are saying.”

  “It varies from person to person, and the attacks may be more or less frequent, but there will be a pattern. Believe me Mary, I’m sorry love, but it will happen again.”

  “What do I do?” For a moment I couldn’t take in the immensity of what she was saying. It didn’t fit in with my thinking.

  “You need to start keeping a diary, love. There will be a pattern.”

  “But how will I know?”

  “Check the time between incidents recorded in the diary. That will help you to come to terms with it and make a decision for yourself.” She was firm with me.

  The phone clattered as I put it down. I stood still in the relative silence of the phone box for a moment, overwhelmed. I recognised the pattern that she had so vividly described. Sense was springing from chaos.

  I opened the door of the telephone box and let sounds of the trains drift back into my thoughts, like
flotsam on the tide. I sat on the steps of the railway crossing nearby, and pondered the catalogue of events with Billy. The rows, his friends. The way he and his cronies treated my home, the violence and my conversation with the charity Refuge.

  Through my tears I felt my anger shine. I was going to stop this. I felt myself getting upset, but I had to carry on. I phoned my doctor’s surgery for an appointment. I didn’t want anymore children and I didn’t share Billy’s vision of five children around a table. It was all clear now—I didn’t see another child as being helpful; quite the opposite, I now was convinced in my own mind that it was time to plan my exit strategy. A sterilisation was the first step along that path. It had been a productive day and I was delighted to achieve so much.

  Within a few days I was in the doctor’s surgery. I told the doctor I wanted a sterilisation, about my worry for the future, and this violent relationship with Billy. He told me straight that in his opinion I had many more babies in me yet. This didn’t seem to be the answer I was seeking, and so I made an appointment with another doctor for the very next day.

  Again, I stressed my relationship anxieties, and about my conversation with the Refuge charity, their advice and my fears and expectations. He gave me one answer—yes okay, but you will need to have counselling.

  “Agreed.” I went off to make an appointment with the counsellor.

  I told Billy that I had to go to the hospital for a check up, but had a sterilisation instead. I phoned Billy from the hospital and told him I couldn’t have any more babies. He was furious, but I was determined to take control of my life. I was in hospital for a few days, and arranged for Mum to check up on Lindsay each day.

  Despite the discomfort of having the operation, it was worthwhile. I would not be controlled—it was my body and I didn’t feel that I wanted any more children.

  Billy was doing a gig with Jimmy at 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. Roz and I arrived later to a big marquee set up, with stalls, events, boot sales and everything that field events have. Everywhere was the smell of canvas and wooden trestles in muddy little tents, which lined the edge of the field. A makeshift stage was erected, with balloons hanging from the bunting strung across the marquee, like some old 1940’s street party. Loudspeakers, mixers and microphones were festooned with wires. It was set up and ready to blast out to the assembled crowd.