Beauty's Story

by Rita Edah

  Will I ever be able to mend my broken heart? Will I have another opportunity to mother these children right?

  Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me.

  CHAPTER 10

  Summer 2003

  Ashleigh (aged 14)

  I can’t believe that Sunita is one.

  I can’t believe Josh is taking out the rubbish off his own back.

  And I can’t believe I’m in love.

  Aunty Daisy says they always come in threes – your bus, after you’ve been waiting for a long time, turns up three in a row; like getting caught out in the rain on the day you had your hair retouched, your clothes out on the line and a car splashes all over you even though you tried your hardest to dodge it. They come in threes: bad stuff (I’ve had loads and loads of those) and obviously good stuff (I’m just beginning to see some of those).

  It’s kind of weird that good stuff began to happen to me when things were really awful – Josh had had a taste of the inside, I was bullied and ended up in hospital, and while there, Aunty Daisy went into labour to have Sunita.

  Nathan and a few other kids from school came to see me in hospital – which was a surprise as not many spoke to me or even acknowledged my existence. I did catch Nathan eyeing me from time to time, but I didn’t think he would be interested in me – why would he? He was the Zack Efron of our school and all the popular girls including Trace and Scary Spice were always hanging out with him.

  To be honest I thought I was dreaming. This was day three – Sunday. Mum wasn’t yet back from her camp. Aunty Daisy thought it was best to let her enjoy her first weekend away alone, ever, as any news of the drama will cause her to cut it short. I’d stopped bleeding. I wasn’t feeling as sore, but the welts on my legs were still very ugly. I’d been allowed to cuddle Sunita – the first and only newborn I’ve ever seen close up. Aunty Beauty, Uncle Theo (who fumed so much that I felt sorry for Trace and Spice) and Josh had all been to see me. So when at about 7.30pm the nurse popped her head round my curtains to say, “Visitors,” I thought it was Mum. It wasn’t until Nathan and his crew that included Trace and Spice, of course, trouped in that I began to fret about how pathetic I looked in this retard floral hospital gown, hair kinked out, face unmade and oh, I wanted to be anywhere else but here.

  “You alright, mate?” Tracy spoke first.

  I could only nod while thinking: ‘Mate?’ Did she just call me ‘mate’? Not ‘loser’, ‘crack head’, ‘hybrid’ but ‘mate’?

  She went on, “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “And I’m sorry too,” Scary Spice joined in. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

  It was all I could do to stop the tears from spilling. Then Nathan spoke up, “She looks tired, we should probably come again tomorrow after school, is that okay, Ash?”

  “Thanks, guys,” I nodded.

  They left me with a card signed by everyone in our class. Nathan then gave me a little package and leaned so close to my ear I could have fainted from his aftershave. “Open it later, it’s from my heart to yours.” I was surprised at the sudden flurries that went on in the pit of my tummy.

  Later that night, when I couldn’t sleep for wondering when I would see Mum again, if ever, I opened the package. I didn’t understand why my hands were shaking. It was a snow globe with the background picture of a robin and a bluebird both perched on a snowladen fir tree…

  Apparently Mum didn’t hear about my accident or Sunita’s birth until she spoke with Aunty Beauty on Monday morning. She swept into Newham General like a hurricane and it didn’t matter that visiting time wasn’t till 4pm. I never knew I’d be so pleased to see her.

  And to think this was a year ago.

  Since then, Nathan and I have become an item.

  Summer 2003

  Melody

  Sunita is one. Wao! I’m so sorry I missed her birth. Yet, in a way, we are twins, for while she was being born at Newham General, I was being reborn at Ashburnham. And it really has been a year since that eventful weekend.

  I remember the journey back. I was so full of energy (the rest had been good for me), and a vision for the future that was brighter than I could ever remember experiencing. I’d never been to a Christian conference before and I didn’t quite know what to expect. It certainly was different from church. The leaders seemed like ordinary people who were struggling with normal life matters just like the rest of us.

  What really began to tug at my heartstrings was when Lisa Holdden began to speak about the Father Heart of God. I had never heard a thing like that in my life. She spoke about God as Father who provides for, protects and guides his children; as one who never wants them to be orphans; as one who is pleased with them, plays with them and rejoices over them with singing.

  And then she spoke about the Mother Heart of God, the God who nurtures, comforts and heals his children. He ‘kisses it better’, would go to the wall for them – and he did, he went to the cross to die in their place.

  It completely threw me. God was personally interested in my life, wanting to be there with me, to be an active parent to me, if I would let him. After the tears subsided, I chose to invite him to do just that. One of the ministers prayed with me. I felt warm and tingly all over. And as she continued to pray for protection and safety for my children, the tears came tumbling down once again. It wasn’t till I spoke with Beauty on Monday morning that I realised that at about that same time, Ash was in hospital, in a coma.

  By the time Ash was discharged from hospital a week later, she was less antagonistic towards me. In the last few months, however, watching her grow in her relationship with Nathan, and separately with Sunita, I can see a new level of maturity in her, and I am hoping that our relationship will get to the point of being comfortable, at the very least.

  I have failed her in so many ways. I should have been there more for her in a way that my mother wasn’t for me. I think in a way she had it worse than me; at least the reason my mother wasn’t there for me was that she had died. In Ash’s case, I’ve been too busy with the demands of life that I’ve been content that she was okay with Josh. And my dad, at least he was physically there. Hers isn’t. And I am mostly to blame for that. I pray she is able to forgive me one day… as a matter of fact, I pray that I am able to forgive myself…

  I pray also that Joshua is able to forgive me. I remember going to get him after posting his bail, still angry with Theo for putting him in the holding facility when he could easily have taken custody of him personally.

  After completing all the paperwork, the wait became unbearable. The place was so hot and stuffy I wondered when the windows were last opened, if ever. I was reading one of the ‘Polite Notices to Visitors’ for the 100th time when the sergeant called me and said, “Here for Joshua Iroro?”

  “Yes please, he’s my son.”

  “He’s a good one,” he said, and winking at me he went on, “we don’t ever want to see him here again.”

  “Thanks,” was all I could say, blinking back the tears.

  The journey home was a silent one. I knew I couldn’t trust myself to speak – either I’d cry or I’d rant, neither of which I wished to indulge in at that point. Josh only used few words with me naturally anyway. So the radio filled up the space between us.

  He offered to make me a cup of coffee when we got home. I declined it without thinking. Then he asked if there was anything I needed. I said, “No thanks, Joshua, I just want to rest.”

  That was when he broke down and cried. Like he was once again my little three-year-old boy. I gathered him in my arms and just let my own tears roll.

  When it was all done, he took both my hands and said to me, “Mum, I’ll never do anything to cause you any more unrest. I promise.”

  I said nothing. I wanted to believe him. But I couldn’t. And I kept fretting until the day a letter came and I realised that he had applied for and got a place in a college to do an NVQ in Mechanical Engineering Services - Plumbing (Domestic).


  Anyway, summer’s here now, Sunita’s one and her beach party was perfect. For starters, it didn’t rain. It was a risk Daisy was willing to take. She didn’t want a house party. She didn’t want a ‘functions room’ party. She really didn’t want any party at first. The past year had been difficult for her. She didn’t seem to get over the initial baby blues, and quite often when I’d spent time with her, she sort of reminded me of myself in the months following Ash’s birth. Although she didn’t tell me, I could tell when she’d been crying – and it seemed to be often.

  She would hardly hold Sunita except to nurse her, and was eager to hand her to Rob or anybody else present or place her back in her cot. She seemed to be anxious over the most insignificant of issues but lacklustre about things that ought to matter. And she seemed to have lost all interest in her personal appearance. She’d not yet restarted her weekly lunches with Beauty and I know that Beauty missed those.

  She seemed to want to sleep all the time and still said she was tired when she got out of bed. Rob was very supportive and I really wished I’d met somebody like that. Ash was eager to babysit Sunita and seemed to have been present during all the milestones, from first smile to first steps. I accompanied Daisy to health visitor/GP surgery trips whenever Rob couldn’t. She couldn’t bear to hold the baby for her jabs.

  I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t recently discovered I could talk to God about anything. I found I talked more about things that bothered me – like wanting Daisy to be happy again; like wanting things to be right between my children and me; like wishing Beauty would get pregnant again, and this time carry to full term.

  And when Daisy eventually agreed to a party for Sunita, albeit at Southend-on-Sea, I talked to God about keeping the rain at bay. And he did. Good one!

  Summer 2003

  Beauty

  I am so tired these days. Honestly, I’m experiencing levels of exhaustion I didn’t even know existed. The only new thing to my schedule is the Early Years course which I am enjoying apart from when Theo is off work and begins to complain that I’m spending too much time on my assignments.

  Last night when he went a-moaning again, I explained to him that I needed to meet the deadlines, and that I needed to pace myself so I’m not too exhausted. He turned his back on me and muttered, “Lazy bones.”

  Although he said he was joking, I did wonder whether there was some truth to it. After all, I do seem to find everything that much more difficult than other people.

  I remember though, the first time he called me ‘lazy’. The first time, that is, when it really cut me to my marrow. I was pregnant for the first time, with Charlie. This was the one that went the longest. Only a couple of weeks more and it could have been a prem, and could probably have been saved.

  I threw up from even before I knew I was pregnant. I had dizzy spells, lost my appetite and could hardly keep awake, and then later I could hardly get to sleep. Of course Theo was careful to point out to me that pregnancy was a thing of joy, and that I wasn’t sick, just pregnant, and that if he could, he would have borne the pregnancy for me, but he couldn’t so I just had to get on with it. And I did. Or at least so I thought.

  We were still living in the flat then, on the second of six floors. I couldn’t stand the smell and confinement of the lifts. As time went on, I avoided going downstairs except when I had to, and once out, I did absolutely everything I could think of that needed doing before coming back into the flat.

  We didn’t have a tumble dryer in those days. And Theo didn’t like the idea of wet clothes on the radiator or even on the airer inside the flat. On this particular Saturday morning, I had done the washing early, hung it on the airer which I’d placed on the balcony, with the towels draped over the balcony railings. At about 10am, I began to feel sleepy again so I went in for a nap.

  Only to be awakened with a gust of cold air.

  “Hey! Why did you pull the duvet off me?”

  “To let you know how unhappy you’ve made our neighbour downstairs,” was his mysterious reply.

  “I don’t believe this,” was all I could manage, for Theo was in a torrent. Apparently he’d been stopped as he came home from his shift this morning. The elderly widow in the ground floor flat right under us pulled him in to show him where drips from our balcony were decorating hers, and she wasn’t too pleased.

  “So, she’s unhappy?”

  “Yes, she is, and I don’t like upsetting my neighbours.”

  “But you don’t mind upsetting your wife? Do you know how many hours I slept last night?”

  “Do you know how many I slept? Zilch! I want to come home to some peace and quiet, not to be being waylaid by Mrs Grouchy made further grumpy by my lazy nogood wife. Sometimes I wonder what I did wrong to be lumbered with you.”

  By this time, he was divested of his uniform, robed in his pyjamas and under the duvet.

  I cannot begin to tell you how much that hurt, and all that followed. Yet, I’ve got to find a way to leave the past well alone. It somehow has a way of creeping up on me. I need to deal with today, the here and the now, or at least the more recent stuff, things that bring a smile to my face, and a hope to my heart. Like Daisy.

  Seeing her during Sunita’s first birthday party was such a joy. She seems to have turned the corner. I would never have imagined Daisy to be at risk of post-natal depression – she and Rob had both wanted a baby for a while; they are financially stable; they have a good home; her career is well established and she could pick it up whenever she wanted. She has so many options. Frankly, there were times when I felt like shaking her up to tell her to look and see how lucky she was… Aunty Mary would have done that… not that I know if it would have worked in this instance, but she is bold, Aunty Mary. I’m just a shrinking violet, a wilting willow, a wimp. For once though, I’m glad I kept my thoughts to myself.

  I thought the setting was radical. There is nothing like the seaside to bring out the child in everyone, including Theo. From about 2.00pm when we met up till about 6.00pm when we had a fish and chips supper followed by the cutting of the cake at the Hammer Head, it was fun and laughter galore.

  There was only one thing that caused me a bit of bother – the way Nathan was with Ash. He followed her everywhere and too closely for my comfort. He completed her sentences and answered questions directed to her. He referred to her as ‘babe’ (which irritated me – she’s neither a baby nor a pig) and there was something about his sleekness that knotted my guts.

  Yet, Ash seemed happy, as did Mel and everyone else. I went to bed that night uneasy, trying to grasp what caused me such great discomfort, an unease that was so familiar yet so elusive…

  I woke up with a start that night, with the word ‘smothered’ on my lips. And a memory of me saying to Mel many years ago, “Mel, I love Theo so very much, but sometimes I feel smothered.”

  As the hand of fear disengaged itself slowly from my heart, I awakened with a realisation that I had to do something about it, for Ash’s sake.

  But what could I do? What could I say? That would make sense anyway? I gave it a go, and spoke with Ash. Of course she laughed me off as being overprotective. “He is really cool, Aunty B,” she insisted. “He really looks after me. I know he loves me.”

  “But he doesn’t let you look after yourself, does he?”

  “He feels it’s a man’s responsibility to look after his lady, and it does kind of make me feel good.”

  “And he speaks for you. If that happens for long enough, you will lose your voice – and along with it your confidence, even your own identity. Ash, he’s not safe.”

  “Being married to a copper has made you extra suspicious,” she insisted. “He is very safe, but thank you for looking out for me. You are the greatest aunt in the whole wide world.”

  I had to let it ride. But the thoughts would not leave me alone. I decided to raise it with Mel who told me nicely to just bugger off and leave them well alone.

  So I did. Knowing that
if somebody had tried to warn me off Theo, I wouldn’t have believed them. Knowing that if I’d had information on how to read the signs then, I’d probably have understood it better and been more cautious. Knowing that I will keep seeking opportunities to pass on relevant information to Ash in the hope that she will discover the truth for herself, and flee while she still can… But then, what if I was wrong? What if my anxieties are colouring my judgement? I decided then it was best not to meddle.

  When the leaflet came through the door, with all the pizza offers and minicab numbers, I knew I had to make the phone call in the first instance. What caught my attention was the question ‘Are you in an abusive relationship?’ I took a closer look.

  Are you in an abusive relationship?

  Do you know of anyone who might be?

  Discover the truth about Domestic Violence (which includes Physical, Verbal, Emotional, Financial and Sexual Abuse) and empower yourself to stop it in your life and/or in your community

  Domestic Violence is more widespread than reported, cuts across all classes, races and creeds and its wounds cut deeper than meets the eye

  Are you a victim? Do not continue to suffer in silence

  Are you unsure? Why not find out?

  For further information on support available in your area, call our confidential 24hour support line……….

  Be safe. Be aware. Take care

  AADV+VA

  (Action Against Domestic Violence and Verbal Abuse)