by Rita Edah
I couldn’t tell you how long I took poring over that little leaflet, a torrent of questions which really were variations of: I couldn’t be in an abusive relationship, could I? Theo’s a good man, he never hit me. Not really. But the words, surely, they are just words? And I’m a sensitive one, aren’t I? Somebody strong like Mel might take it on the chin and give back as good as she gets. Surely I would know it if I were being abused?
Yet… I had to find out… And if it turns out I’m okay, and that my problems with Theo were just relationship issues, then at least I can focus on trying again for us to attend marriage counselling. And what I learn might be useful for somebody else. After all, I am a librarian. So, a few days later, I plucked up some bottle, called the number, and booked myself on an initial consultation. The high level of confidentiality that covered the whole thing suited me just fine.
After that initial session with the women’s support worker, I couldn’t say for sure that I was in an abusive relationship. Do you know what alarmed me though? It was the fact that I couldn’t say for sure that I wasn’t. I thought to follow her counsel and get a trusted ‘outsider’s’ opinion. I eventually broached the topic with Daisy.
“Would you know if you were in an abusive relationship, Daisy?”
“I would hope so – after all, I’d be carrying the bruises around.”
“What if it wasn’t physical, how could you tell?”
“That I do not know. Why do you ask? Do you think I’m being abused?”
“No, I think I am.”
“Really? By who?”
“Theo.”
“Are you sure, Beauty? He puts abusers away, surely he’s not one of them?”
“I know,” I nodded, looking intently into my cold coffee as if for some clues. “I know he’s a good man, and a good police officer. My confusionitis must be getting clinical.” I tried to shrug it off in a chuckle, which didn’t quite come out right.
Daisy was listening. Really listening. I know this because of what she said next, “Why do you say that? You are one of the most lucid people I’ve ever known.”
I opened my mouth. But shut it straight away as I could feel the response rush to my eyes. Dear Daisy. Her hug was soothing. Firm. Comforting.
As we parted company and I made my way home, the knotting on my insides started again, getting tighter the nearer home I got. I knew for sure that something wasn’t quite right. What I didn’t quite know was exactly what was wrong.
CHAPTER 11
Summer 2004
Beauty
She could easily have been mine. Sunita, my little princess, my goddaughter, the closest I’ve ever had to a child of my own. I hear the pattering of her footsteps in my dreams sometimes, the dimpled cheeks that offer me a cheeky smile after she’s melted my heart once again and I’ve given her more treats than I’d intended; the little chubby fingers that touch my lips softly with such sincerity that I’ve been known on occasion to wipe back a tear… I see her and other little ones in my dreams and then I wake up… and I try to go back to sleep again to continue it… but it never quite works out that way.
I have learnt to make up for such interrupted visions of the night. On purpose I see her in my mind’s eye, and summon up scenes from our times together. For instance when she plays with my fuzzy wuzzy dirty brown hair – she seems to prefer it to her teddy bear. And I hear her at the end of The Tiger Who Came To Tea, whining, “Again please, Aunty B, read it to me again.” And I smile when I recall how she breaks into hysterics even before I get to the ‘tickle you under there’ part of Round and Round the Garden.
When Daisy announced late last year that she was going back to work in January, I knew I had to offer her my childminding services.
“Are you sure you want me to be your employer?” Daisy queried.
“Would you rather hand Sunita to a total stranger?” was my comeback.
We were having our weekly lunches again, but these days at Kids’ Domain. At this precise moment, Sunita was romping about in the ball pit. We both turned in her direction in almost perfect unison.
“No, Beauty. It would be an honour to have you look after Sunita for us. Thank you.”
“The pleasure, really, is mine. I will care for Sunita as if she were my very own – after all, I am her godmother and it’s about time I took my duties a bit more seriously.”
Giving up my work at the library was more difficult than I’d envisaged. As God would have it, it turned out that they needed to make some cuts and were offering a voluntary redundancy package. If they didn’t have enough volunteers, they’d have to make compulsory cuts. I thought £35,000 was sweet enough to help me bite the bullet, and to keep Theo satisfied that it was a good decision. And it did.
What came as a surprise was his reaction to my taking on Sunita.
“And the reason you want to babysit Sunita is…?”
“To begin my childminding business once I finish with the library job.”
“And you want to do this because…?”
“Because having completed the Early Years course, I have several options, childminding being the most suitable for me right now.”
“I’d have thought an intelligent woman like you would have wanted to do something more mentally stimulating than childminding.” How can I describe to you the sneer in his voice? Or the utter contempt that oozed from his face?
“Theo,” I pulled myself up to face him as far as I could, on tiptoes and all, “you are insulting my intelligence. I demand an apology.”
“Woman! Are you drunk or something?”
I decided to take my time to respond. It was almost as though I were seeing him for the first time. Is this really Theo, my Theo, or is somebody else impersonating him?
My silent stare must have made him uncomfortable. As he began to retreat into his easy chair, I surprised myself when I called out, “I’ll take the ‘or something’. And I will let you know now that I will no longer accept your rudeness to me. I am a grown woman, I can make decisions. You don’t have to agree with me, but you surely have no right to insult me.”
I didn’t hang around to hear his response. He spent the rest of the evening like a bear with a sore head.
It’s been six months now. I haven’t taken on another child – I haven’t even advertised my services. I’m happy to stick with Sunita for now – the only one who knows that I’ve been attending the Action Against Domestic Violence and Verbal Abuse (AADV+VA) Support Centre every Wednesday afternoon.
After the initial consultation where I’d left feeling even more confused than before; after I’d broken down trying to discuss it with Daisy, my trusted objective ‘outsider’; after I couldn’t decide whether I was being abused or I was just plain clinically confused, I decided to attend the small group support sessions. I thought that being in that setting would bring me some clarity one way or another. And I was convinced that even if the discovery was not useful to me personally, I could use it to help somebody else.
There were typically a maximum of eight ladies in a group with a support worker and her assistant. The meeting venues were in two or three different places which were kept highly confidential. I found it suited me fine and it was extremely convenient that we could attend with our own preschoolers while being directly responsible for them at all times.
My group support worker, Myra, could easily have passed for an American basketball player. So when in her introductions she said she was once a victim of domestic violence, I was thinking ‘How could that have been?’
As if reading my thoughts, she went on to explain that after a six-month courtship, she’d married a man who suffered from ‘small man syndrome’ and that he’d spent the next 10 years of their lives together trying to ‘cut her down to size’. And that he succeeded largely because she didn’t know what she was up against. And also because she couldn’t believe what she was seeing and hearing from the person she thought she knew differently, so she tried to find explanations for his behaviour…<
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“So, before I go into the signs of a potentially abusive partner or the early signs of an abusive relationship, I will mention three effects abuse has on its victim: 1) Confusion…” My ears stayed pricked as she continued, “If you can’t say for sure whether or not you are in an abusive relationship, you most probably are in one.”
The other two kind of washed over me as I chewed on what I’d just heard. Could this be true? Always true? Like gravity?… Myra’s words soon come back into focus, “Now feel free to share as much or as little as you are comfortable with…” And so it was introductions and so on and so forth.
And that’s been the pattern largely – a little insight into the world of abuse, abusers and victims and little chitchats amongst group members. Sometimes, though, if somebody had had a particularly bad week and wanted to share, we all rallied round her. No one was allowed to tell anyone else what to do or not to do in their individual situations. Myra would say, “We are about raising awareness, sharing strategies for keeping safe and growing strong; we are a ‘support’ network, not a ‘control’ network.” She insisted, “Each must be free to do and be whatever they are comfortable with, including stopping sessions whenever they please.”
I found the sessions stimulating. I still wasn’t sure where I was in relation to being a victim of domestic violence. Some of the symptoms shown by victims of DV also occurred in depression, and I know I have a melancholic outlook and disposition. I was always a sensitive one. But then, as I thought about Ash’s relationship with Nathan, I wondered if Nathan didn’t have the tendencies I was learning are common to controllers who tend to end up abusing their partners.
And, frankly, it felt good to be in the midst of other adults as I’d given up the luxury of a regular job.
What I found difficult to the point of near distress was assessing Theo against what I was learning to be the ‘profile of the controlling partner’. Surely what we were having were communication issues and/or immaturity on his part? I found myself excusing him in my mind, rationalising his behaviour. It wasn’t until much later that I realised there was a technical term for that: I was in denial.
Summer 2004
Ashleigh (aged 15)
Nathan. This is why I love him:
1.Oh my gosh! I could never guess what he was going to give me next, or when or where. In the last year I’ve received random gifts like a Japanese fan; a set of Russian dolls stacked into one another; a silver wristwatch (for my last birthday); a 12-carat gold necklace with a forever friends locket (for Christmas); a smoothie maker; a bouquet of (artificial) lilies (for Valentine’s); a photo frame; a silver promise ring; a scarf; a digital camera; and a sleek satin black dress with a red sash – not my style but I wear it for him anyway.
2.He is so handsome, sometimes I pinch myself that he chose me to be his girlfriend. I am indeed the envy of all my mates.
3.His voice. He could soothe me to sleep with the same vocal chords that he’d use to break up a gang fight.
4.He respects my wish to wait awhile before getting physically intimate.
And this is why I sometimes wonder about him:
1.He can have any girl he wants, yet he seems terrified of losing me. For example, at a club once (don’t tell Mum!), I danced with one of Josh’s friends while Nathan was taking his time coming back from the bar. He came right between us, taking me by the hand and shoving Sam with the other, snarling, “Lay off my woman!”
I didn’t like the way he behaved. To be honest, it scared me a little bit. But he said it’s because he loves me too much. I’ve never danced with anyone else since then.
2.Sometimes when he kisses certain girls goodbye, it looks too close, much more than a peck and I’m sure I’ve even seen him brush a boob or two in the course of hanging out with other friends, and sometimes casually grazing his hands against their moons. He says I’m moaning if I ask him about it and that I’m jealous and possessive and that he has eyes and hands only for me, and was willing to wait for me and that I needed to trust him more. And I’m too embarrassed to talk about this with anyone, even though it worries me sometimes. Maybe if I agreed to make out more with him he might not stray with them? I really worry though that making out might lead to putting out and I really am not ready for that. Does that make me a freak?
3.He wants to know what I am thinking all the time. And if I don’t feel like sharing, he says I’m shutting him out. Although I’m not. It’s just that sometimes I want to be by myself. I just want some space to breathe. Nathan often seems to want to crowd me out.
This confuses me. I really love him, and would like to spend the rest of my life with him. And he says he loves me, he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, and he showers me with presents whether an occasion calls for it or not. He wouldn’t tell me how he could afford these though, but I know his parents are well loaded, so I believe he is clean.
But, like Aunty Beauty says, the rest of my life is a long time, and I need to be sure…
Yet how can I be sure? Mum seems to think that he’s my ‘Mr Right’. Well, what do you expect – she has a pinup of Zac Efron in her bedroom.
I don’t see much of Josh these days – and to be fair, he doesn’t see much of me – so I don’t know what he really thinks.
Aunty Daisy says I’m still young and I don’t have to commit just yet, and to “trust your guts”. Not much use as my guts are in a twist.
I just don’t know. I even found myself praying the other day. I said under my breath, “God, I’m confused. I know I don’t come to you often, but please help me. My mum says that you hear and answer prayers. If so, please show me a sign of what I should do about Nathan – should I stay with him, or should I break it off?”
This Saturday morning, I updated my Facebook status: ‘Fed up browsing Facebook. Don’t feel like homework. Guess what? Will go tidy up my bedroom !’
I thought I’d start by cheering myself up – looking through last year’s Christmas cards that I still had in a pile on my desk. There was one from Josh: ‘To the best sister in whole wide world including the web’. I smile as I remember how that had made me laugh. I do miss Josh. Thank God for Facebook, we remain in each other’s world.
Mum’s was a regular ‘from mum to daughter’ card.
Nathan’s was: ‘To My One and Only Everlasting Love at Christmas and Forever’.
Aunty Beauty’s was: ‘Merry Christmas Dear One’, on a photo of us both taken a few years ago when we all went to Disneyland Paris, and me and Aunty Beauty sat next to each other on the Big Mountain Thrill. You should see the look on our faces. There is no way this is going in the recycling bin.
Inside the card she wrote by hand: ‘Dearest Ash, you are precious to me, my very dear niece. And I love you like you were my own daughter. Wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Go forth into the New Year, be bold, be brave and pursue your dreams! With love always, Aunty Beauty & Uncle Theo xxx’.
Aunty Beauty. She’s so lovely. She looks so sad these days. I wonder if it has to do with her not yet having children of her own? Or Uncle Theo’s ridiculous working hours? (I’m slightly scared of him and I don’t know why.) She talks with me about real life stuff more than Mum ever does.
I remember one day she came in as Nathan was leaving. After he’d gone, she’d said to me with a twinkle in her eyes, “Do I hear wedding bells any time soon?”
“Not with my consent,” Mum chirped from the kitchen, “she’s got to complete her education first, and not get interrupted like I was.”
“You could still have gone back, you know,” Aunty Beauty threw back to Mum. Then she asked me to sit next to her. “So tell me, really, how is it going?”
“Well, so-so. To be honest, sometimes I’m sure, sometimes I’m not. There are times I think I understand him. There are times when I think I have no clue about him… but I love him, and I know he loves me… so…” I finish with a shrug.
“Darling Ash, you are too young to go into a longterm relati
onship on a 50% assurance. Let me give you some tips.”
She asked me to get my diary/organiser and take notes. I love my Aunty Beauty and her chief librarian ways. But sometimes, like that day, I found it tedious. I was like, “Do I have to?”
My whining voice didn’t work on this occasion. She said, “You don’t have to, but if you have them down somewhere, you can refer to them if you ever need to, or pass them on to somebody else.”
I groaned, “Does it have to be like right now?”
“Nothing like the present moment, my dear,” she insisted. Oh Aunty Beauty.
Seeing she wasn’t going to give in, I thought I might as well humour her and get it over with, so I got my Betty Boop organiser that, incidentally, was a present from her, and took down her pearls of wisdom. I suddenly had an urgent need to revisit that list today before getting on with the cleaning.
As I haven’t used that organiser in a while, I had to ferret through some stuff in my drawers to find it. I turned to the entry which I’d titled ‘Aunty Daisy’s Recipe for Relationship Bliss – Session 1’.
1)When in doubt, opt out.
2)If you feel disrespected, you are being disrespected – don’t argue yourself out of it.
3)Self-preservation is the first rule of survival. If you feel unsafe with him, then you are unsafe with him. Don’t try to reason it out. Allow yourself to act in your own best interests – this is not being selfish, it is being wise.
4)Trust your instincts more than you trust him.
5)If you feel intimidated by him, then you are being intimidated by him.
6)If his words of love and his actions don’t add up, believe his actions over his words.
7)Love is gracious.
8)Love is kind.
9)Love is peaceful, peaceable and pure.
10)Love empowers, it doesn’t paralyse.
11)Love frees, it never imprisons.
12)Love gives, it never drains.
Be aware. Let your head work with your heart as you navigate these waters.
I trust you to look after yourself. Go ahead and do just that.