So Far Divided

by Paul Kelly

  I could not believe what I had heard as this subject had never been discussed for so many years before and the last time I had the matter spoken about was when I gave birth to my little boy and Sarah arranged for his adoption. I know this was a matter that could not be discussed as I could not understand fully myself how I had become pregnant, but I had accepted the fact that both Sarah and her husband had also accepted the situation and no further discussion was ever held. I swallowed hard and made an excuse that I was going to my room as I had some notes to prepare for the following day at school, but Martin rose quickly and stood against the door.

  “I think it is about time that we found out how you became pregnant, Steph,” he said and he used my abbreviated name . . . which I had never ever hard him use before. He and Sarah had always called me Stephanie . I stared at him, without knowing what to say as there was nothing I could say . . .Any explanation would have been insufficient and I had no intention of ever mentioning Aaron’s name. How could I? I knew they would never believe that anyway and I was confused as Martin would not move from where he was standing and there was no way I could leave the lounge.

  “I need to go to my room,” I said making the excuse that I had some work to prepare for the following day, but Martin stood his ground, “When you have given me the explanation both Sarah and I want,” he snapped and regretfully I started to cry. There was no way I could get out of that room. Martin was too strong for me to push aside, but when he saw my tears, he did stand aside, but not before he made a last demand. “When you are ready,” he barked, “and you have had over twenty years to give us a suitable explanation . . . now that you are living here with us”.

  I went upstairs and threw myself across the bed, but with all the best will in the world there was no way I could give an explanation for my pregnancy and I prayed to God to help me find an excuse. Before long I feel asleep but it was not dreams that I had . . . IT WAS A NIGHTMARE and I could see Aaron approaching me as I lay in my bed and he was smiling. He wasn’t a little boy . . . he was a man and I was suddenly afraid, but before I could see any more, I woke up screaming and Sarah was standing over me.

  “Darling, what is the matter. You are so hot and your brow is wet.

  Have you had a bad dream?”

  I threw my arms around Sarah and she did likewise, telling me not to worry about anything and go back to sleep, adding, like a good girl . . . and I wondered what she would say to me if and when Martin told her what he had asked of me. Would I have been a good girl if Martin and Sarah made their own conclusion about my pregnancy? But nearly a week went by and Martin said nothing more on the subject until one evening when I had a very bad headache from trying to control a little boy at the school who had thrown such vicious tantrums, that I was exhausted when the school bell rang for time to go home. I had just settled down in bed when the bedroom door opened and Martin came in and closed the door behind him. It all happened so quickly that I could do nothing about it. Even to scream would have been no us. Martin had a look in his eye that told me to shut up. . .

  “Now then young lady,” he snarled, “You will know what to do when I show you this,” he said and he started to undo his flies, but I screamed at this point and hoped that Sarah would come quickly but Martin simply smiled. “Do you think I would be here with you if my dear wife was in the house,” he said, “I am here because that same dear wife is too tired for any bedroom activity and she has been too tired for too many bloody years and I know you must be constantly thinking what you have missed since the last time you were fucked. .. Twenty years or so, isn’t it? Well we can put an end to all that now, my lovely. Move across the bed.”

  I could smell Martin’s breath and I knew he had been drinking and in that instant, I realized why he had suddenly become interested in my time of the pregnancy. Sarah must have been rejecting him and that was why he had suddenly considered it wise to Venture into ‘new vistas’ but I struggled and screamed the more until he fell down by the side of the bed and I escaped down into the kitchen. I had only my bedclothes on but I was resolved to get out of the house whatever I had to do and I ran upstairs again quickly, hoping that Martin was too drunk to see me and I grabbed my dressing gown from the back of the bedroom door, catching a quick glimpse at Martin who was snoring and snorting as loudly as I had ever heard him before. I stood still for a second and could not believe my eyes. Martin was still trying to undo his trousers with a wicked grin on his face. It took me about seven minutes to get down to the police station and regardless of what Sarah would think, I told the police what had happened. They took me home and looked around for the culprit but clever Martin had had a quick shower and looked at the policeman in surprise as if I had gone off my head.

  “She is often like this,” he said, “I think it is due to the fact that she was abused as a child and she now thinks that everyone and anyone would be after her.”

  The policeman took some details and asked Martin his name and a few other details, telling me to have a good night and to come down to the station again in the morning if I was still worried.

  When the policeman had gone, I stared at Martin, but he would not look at me. He simpered around the room before he lit a cigarette and then he glared at me through the smoke and I watched him walk slowly to the table and flick his cheroot into the ashtray. He coughed twice and swallowed hard before he spoke again.

  “We don’t want Sarah to know about all this nonsense, do we Steph. I don’t think she would appreciate your fondness for me now, would she . . . and don’t forget how much we have put up with you through all these years now, will you dear?”

  I went to my bedroom and locked the door, but I could hear Martin lumbering around outside and I was terrified that he would try to do the same thing again at some other time, so I decided that despite my very low wage and whatever it might cost, I was going to find a flat SOMEHOW and as quickly as possible.

  Chapter Four

  The following day when I went to school, the headmistress must have recognised that I wasn’t my normal self because she asked me to come to her room in the lunch hour and I was immediately concerned that I might not be doing the job properly and I was anxious to keep this job because of the reasons I had for it. It reminded me of Jack and his lovely intentions to the children I was looking after and perhaps most of all, if somewhat more selfishly, I needed the money to get somewhere to live, away from my prying uncle.

  I knocked on the head mistress’s office door and waited until she called me in It had her name on the door, MISS J TEMPLETON. . .

  “Good morning Miss Cohen . . . or rather good afternoon, I should say and may I call you Stephanie?” Miss Templeton had a Scottish accent. I had heard this accent before. It was clear and I could understand every word she said.

  I agreed that she should address me by my Christian name, suggesting that Steph might be even more appropriate and she invited me to sit down. “I am a little concerned as to your appearance this morning, Stephanie. . . oh Steph, I mean. That’s better isn’t it? I mean, you don’t look like your usual self and you are normally very breezy and cheerful which is exactly what we need here for the children. Is there anything wrong? I mean, is there is anything I can do to help if there is something?”

  I knew I could never tell Miss Templeton what was on my mind and I didn’t know what to say. I looked at her for a few moments in silence, hoping I might find something to explain the difference in my character, but nothing came to mind . . . and then I thought, if I could tell her that I was particularly worried about some of the children, she would accept that excuse.

  “Miss Templeton, I am worried about . . .”

  “Oh please call me Jane. I don’t like the Templeton business,” she said with a broad smile on her face.

  “Thank you, Jane . . . but I am worried about the children and I do so want to give them the best care I have in every way.”


  Jane Templeton looked at me for a few moments in silence and then she smiled again.

  “Stephanie . . . Steph. , what can I say? You have excelled yourself both with the staff and the children since you came to us . .

  Is it six weeks now?” she asked and I told her it was nearly eight and she smiled again. “Eight weeks and you are great with everyone here in the school, so I don’t want you to worry any more about that issue. Do you understand?”

  I was thrilled at what she said to me and almost forgot my other problem, but as I was about to leave the office, I turned to her and asked if she knew of any way that I could perhaps move into a flat and she stared at me.

  “I understood you were living with relatives, Stephanie. Is there a problem there?”

  I knew she had hit the nail on the head but I could hardly tell her about my uncle Martin, could I? and anyway, I did not want to talk about anything of the nature of my problem. One explanation would lead to another and there was no way I could explain anything without feeling utterly stupid.

  “I think it would be best if I left them, Jane . . . there is little room for the three of us and I think it would be best all round if I allowed my aunt and uncle some space.”

  Jane Templeton rose from her desk and took my arm as I was about to leave the room.

  “Steph. . . I feel sure I could help you there,” she went on,” I have a new flat myself because as you probably know, I have only been the headmistress of this school for the past twelve months since I came down here from Scotland and to be honest, I am a bit lonely living there and it is a bigger place then I need, so would you please consider coming to live with me?”

  I could have kissed Jane Templeton there and then as there was so much joy and relief in my heart as I nodded enthusiastically and Jane Templeton told me she would meet me after school and show me my new abode, meanwhile I returned to my classroom and to my horror, one of the little boys had cut himself very badly and I had to rush to the telephone and call for an ambulance, but when I later telephoned his parents to tell them what had happened, I found that both the boy’s father and mother were out. His little sister said she didn’t know where they were as they often went out during the day. I was perplexed and didn’t know what else to do, but Jane Templeton came out to see what the noise was about and when I told her of the disaster, she asked me if I would be good enough to go to the hospital and stay with the little boy until she herself could come and bring me home to her flat.

  Fortunately the little boy; Karl Drayton was O.K. after having a few stitches in his knee and Jane and I went home to what I found to be a very beautiful flat. What surprised me most was that Jane had a lovely dinner ready when we did get back again and she told me that she employed a lady cleaner to come in every day to clean the flat and prepare whatever she wanted for her dinner that evening. After having been a ‘cleaner’ myself for Sarah and Martin, I was well pleased and hoped there was something I could do in the flat in thanks for being allowed to share it I slept well that first night I had bed in Jane’s flat after we had a lovely evening together sharing a brandy and I was still perplexed when I thought about the years I had spent with Sarah and Martin and had never at any time thought that Martin would have acted as he did and I began to suspect, even more than before that Sarah might have spurned him for some reason or other which made him react as he did. Had someone told me that Martin could have acted in that way, I would never have believed them. I had always regarded Sarah and Martin as a happily married couple and then I began to think about Sarah and WHY should would have rebuffed Martin in the way he said she did. Did she have any idea of his other sexual interests?

  Every day at the school was a complete joy ever since I had moved into Jane’s flat and she treated me more like a friend than an employee, but when any of the others of her staff were present, she was indeed the headmistress and I was only a classroom assistant and that was the way I liked it. It was on one particular Friday evening then normally we had finished work at the school for the entire week, that Jane suggested I could help her attend one of the children at his home, as his mother who had been divorced from his father two years before, had to go into hospital for an examination but would be home again by the end of the day. Of course I was delighted and as Jane had a car, we drove off early on the Saturday morning to attend to the little boy whom I had remembered from the class I had been allocated to supervise from a week before. His name was Charlie Torrington. He was a delightful child and kept laughing at everything we said or did, which was a great thing for us as he didn’t miss his Mum as much as we thought he might. Jane was marvellous with Charlie and I could clearly see the teaching vocation in her greater than when she was relegated to her headmistress office at the school. Here she was ‘a teacher’ and not a headmistress. Here, above all and everything was a HUMAN BEING and I was more than surprised too when she produced a box full of ‘goodies’ like sandwiches and sweets, before she brought out a bottle or orange aid. Charlie was delighted and made good use of all Jane had brought with her until his mother came home from hospital a little later.

  Later on the way home in her car, Jane told me that she always did that sort of thing if ever she was called out to the children and I could only stop to think how attentive she was to everything and everyone involved in her vocation of teaching. That evening we sat together in her lounge, discussing life in general and she told me how she had started her teaching career in Glasgow and how she very nearly got married, only to discover very soon in the engagement that he was certainly not the man for her and she never looked back or forward since. Jane Templeton was completely satisfied with her life as it was then and I felt a ‘certain envy’ when she told me that, but I still found it hard to talk about my own life and certainly the time when I was pregnant. I knew that nobody would believe what I told them and for that very reason, I remained silent.

  Chapter Five

  Life went on happily at the school and the pupils were a delight to be with. I was not a teacher, only an assistant to the teachers and I moved about from class to class where I was able to be in constant touch with the teachers and the pupils and I never found a single problem in my work with anyone in the school; teachers or pupils...

  I suppose, as with any job, there were always favourites, or some that you could like more easily than others, but apart from one little boy named Adam Mortyn who had cerebral palsy, I found everyone else to be wonderful. Adam was badly afflicted in so many ways and my heart went out to him immediately I saw him. His father brought him to the school only two weeks after I had started working there and by that time I was established in the chores that I had to do and gave one hundred per cent to everything that was required of me, but Adam . . . well, he just broke my heart.

  He was about three foot when he was able to stand, which was difficult for him as he was always in a wheelchair, but he liked to do things that were not in his curriculum and I encouraged him to do whatever he could as I felt it was good exercise for him and I know he hated to think that he was in any way incapable. I was always there beside him if he should topple over and we used to laugh together when he thought he was going to fall and I would shout ‘Whoops’ and lift him into the air. I did not single this little boy out from all the other children at the school, but Adam had a particular need that none of the other children required . . . he was doubly incontinent and although the teachers loved the children they had to teach, I don’t think any of them wanted to change a little boy every few hours. I thought nothing of it and Adam and I made a little joke every time we had to do anything so intimate as change his nappy. We used to hold our noses and frown and giggle or I would pretend that I was going to faint with the smell and this brought tears of joy to Adam.

  Adam was collected from the school each day at 3.30 pm and his father smiled when his little boy cried, hoping I would go home with him. (The little boy I mean . . . not the father.) T
he father joked too and told me that people would be talking about us if we continued to laugh together as we did. I would wave to Adam and blow him a kiss, where his dad would return the compliment and blow me a kiss as he was driving off in his car, but I knew there was nothing to worry about here as Adam’s father must have been about twenty-three or four years of age . . . almost ten years my junior.

  Life went on happily with my joys of school days and pleasant evenings with Jane in her lovely flat. I had come to believe that happiness had at last touched me when one evening to my great surprise when I went to answer the door bell of the flat, I found Martin standing in the doorway. I wanted to close the door quickly but he put his foot out and the door remained open.

  “What do you want here?” I asked but the reply was simply a wicked smile as he pushed past me and came into the lounge. “How did you find me here?” I demanded and again, I was greeted with another wicked smile, more resembling a grin as his eyes narrowed into an evil appearance of slits instead of eyes.

  “The school secretary was very obliging when I asked about you,”

  Martin replied, “Apparently you are very popular at the school and everyone thinks you are the ‘tops’ . . . Did you know that?”

  I looked around wondering what next to do, but I knew there was nothing and nobody around to help me. Jane had gone out for the evening and I was entirely alone.

  “Well, aren’t you going to ask me if I would like a cup of tea . . . or something stronger perhaps . . . as I intend to be staying here for quite a while . . .” was all he would say and I told him that Jane would be home at any time and she would be surprised to see him in her flat.

  “ Jane?” he asked as if this information surprised him. “Oh you mean JANE . . . oh no dear, she won’t be home until very late this evening.