Beyond All Evil

by June Thomson

  The door opened and the doctor came back into the room.

  ‘She’s doesn’t need to see a psychologist. I can sort her out myself,’ Rab said.

  I said nothing. The nerve endings of my emotions had long since been dulled. Rab could do no more to me than he had already done.

  The doctor did not look convinced. ‘I’ll get a call back in a minute, Mrs Thomson, but first I’ll take a few notes.’

  He slipped a pen from the breast pocket of his white coat and it hovered over his clipboard.

  ‘Now, Mrs Thomson, has there been any unusual stress in your life …?’

  God help me, I almost laughed.

  Giselle: I knew I couldn’t love Ash but I still wanted him to be a father to Jay-Jay.

  Paul couldn’t speak. He wanted to but he couldn’t. His eyes were saucers of bright light. He was sitting deep in the living-room sofa, lost among the cushions and cuddly toys. Jay-Jay was draped over his lap, asleep. I hovered, preparing to leap forward, but then realised that Jay-Jay was safe. Paul was cradling him gently, looking from the baby to me.

  ‘You love him, don’t you?’ I said softly.

  He nodded vigorously. Words still eluded him. He was overwhelmed.

  ‘Smile!’ said a voice behind me. Katie. The camera flash exploded in a blaze of white light. I turned to see my sister examining the back of the camera.

  ‘Nice!’ she said. ‘Look, Paul, there’s you and Jay-Jay.’

  The photo revealed my sons frozen in time, the baby sleeping, lost to the world, and Paul looking straight at me with a look of wonder on his face.

  ‘Get in with Paul and Jay-Jay,’ said Katie, telling little Giselle – their ‘other’ mother – to join her cousins.

  Giselle didn’t have to be told twice. She threw herself down beside Paul and embraced both boys in a hug that declared, ‘You’re mine!’

  ‘Ah, you look bonnie,’ said Ma, who was sitting opposite the children. ‘They’re beautiful,’ she said to no one in particular.

  ‘Da!’ I shouted. He was crashing about in the kitchen, performing a very important task. He was making a pot of tea.

  ‘Da! Come and get your picture taken with the boys.’

  He, too, did not have to be told twice and he was soon ensconced in the chair with the children, his big arms thrown around them.

  I sat down and surveyed my flat, which was now a shrine to childhood. There were toys everywhere – gifts of baby clothes from family, friends and neighbours were piled high on every surface. In a community like mine, the arrival of a new baby is a unifying event that encompasses everyone. There was a constant stream of people at my door, all of whom would look at my perfect son and go off to regale their family and friends with tales of his ‘munchkin’ face and shock of dark hair.

  Everyone wanted to see Jay-Jay. Everyone, it seemed, except his father.

  ‘Where’s Ashley today?’ Ma asked.

  ‘Working,’ Katie said quickly.

  ‘Works hard, that boy,’ Da said.

  ‘Never has a minute to himself,’ Katie said, giving me a knowing look.

  ‘Where’s my boys?’ a voice boomed from the doorway. My brother Tam.

  Paul relinquished Jay-Jay to little Giselle and leapt from the sofa to greet his uncle, who swung him high into the air to the accompaniment of Paul’s whooping laughter.

  Tam’s arrival had, mercifully, put any more talk of Ash on the back burner. He had continued to be a frequent visitor since Jay-Jay was born but he did not share the communal joy at my younger son’s arrival.

  He had refused to pick us up from the hospital, and this time round there were no visits from his mother. I had asked him if he had told his mother about Jay-Jay but all he did was grunt and turn away.

  I had hoped that when Ash saw the baby his heart would soften and he would acknowledge the obvious truth. But when he visited he would arrive laden with gifts for Paul and nothing for Jay-Jay. The baby was steadfastly ignored. It was as if he didn’t exist. Ash’s indifference wounded me but I would never let it show.

  I refused to allow his mood to sour my own. Jay-Jay was fast becoming the most famous child in Royston, to be oooh’d and aaah’d over by all and sundry.

  Paul adored his brother and I could see that, young as he was, he was mystified by his father’s behaviour towards Jay-Jay. It was obvious that he felt uncomfortable when he received gifts from his father and Jay-Jay was ignored. Paul would immediately ‘share’ what he had with his little brother.

  ‘That’s for you,’ his father said.

  ‘… and for Jay-Jay,’ Paul replied.

  ‘No … No … For Dad’s special boy.’

  ‘… and for Jay-Jay.’

  I felt such love for my kind-hearted son in those moments. His churlish father could have learned much from him. If it was Ash’s intention to create a rift between his sons, it was failing.

  ‘When will you learn?’ I asked Ash.

  ‘Learn what?’ he said.

  ‘The truth … Look at him, he’s yours!’

  ‘How do I know?’

  ‘Look at him!’

  Jay-Jay was the spitting image of Ash.

  But Ash would turn away and say, ‘Night, night, Paul … You are Daddy’s only special boy.’

  I was just so relieved that Jay-Jay was still too young to know that his father had rejected him.

  But that would change – and I wasn’t prepared for the lengths to which Ash would go to challenge the truth.

  Chapter 19

  Beginning of the End

  ‘June kept trying to find “something”, but Giselle was about to glimpse the true dark side to Ash’s character, the side he hid so carefully from everyone else.’

  Ian Stephen

  June: I kept hoping for a new beginning … But Muiredge was the beginning of the end.

  Ryan ran through the throng of smiling, happy people. He was oblivious to them. His gaze was on me. My very special boy – my saviour in a little black jacket, kilt, white shirt and bow tie. His eyes glittered like one of the necklaces that Michelle insisted on wearing now that she was ‘grown up’.

  How could I know he had less than two years left to live?

  Ryan collided with me, crying ‘Mummy!’ I held the fluted glass aloft in my hand to prevent champagne from spilling over my pale-pink two-piece suit. He had negotiated the legs of the guests who were ‘celebrating’ my silver wedding anniversary – a quarter of a century of less-than-wedded bliss. The room was crowded, but until Ryan raced to me I had felt alone.

  Rab was on my right, wearing a black suit, a white shirt and a white silk tie. His face glowed with bonhomie and good health. He was the centre of attention, surrounded by family and friends sharing what they believed to be a wonderful milestone in our life together. I was miserable, my painted smile only achieving true warmth when I looked down on the tousled head of my little boy.

  ‘Watch my outfit!’ I laughed as he tried to ‘dance’ with me.

  In the five years since he had been born, Ryan had saved me with his love and his dependence on me. He had pulled me back from the edge, validating my miserable existence with Rab. The tender Rab, who had held our newborn son, had of course regressed, as I suspected he would, but he no longer held the same crushing power over me.

  My eldest sons, Shaun and Ross, towered over me. They were men, no longer the boys who had relied on their mother. Michelle was 24.

  She, too, would soon be taken from me.

  Her days were now filled with other people, a coterie of carers who made her less dependent on me. Ryan was the only one who still truly needed his mum.

  ‘Dance, Mummy, dance,’ he shouted.

  I fell in with Ryan’s rhythm until I heard Rab’s imperious voice.

  ‘Have you not done enough dancing?’ he said, the quiet harshness in his words audible to me alone.

  He still wore his false smile. We were in a function suite of a pub, close to where we now lived on the outskirts of Buckh
aven.

  The house was called ‘Muiredge’ and I had chosen it. Rab could not have cared less where we lived, but I had been so unhappy in our previous house, living in that street of strangers. I had spent months searching for the perfect house, and Muiredge was my dream. It sat on its own, with a big garden.

  A new beginning.

  Rain, sleet or snow, I spent most of my time with Ryan in that garden. I would point to the tree-tops behind the house and tell him that was where the cheeky monkeys lived. I delighted in my son. We were inseparable. He loved stories and I adored making them up for him. Our days were filled with tales of fairies at the bottom of the garden, where, as far as Ryan was concerned, they coexisted happily with a witch’s cat.

  Muiredge was an idyllic place, where I envisaged my son growing up. As I looked down at him now, I caught a glimpse of the red ruby cluster on my finger – Rab’s anniversary gift to me. He had wanted to buy me a big, flashy solitaire ring, no doubt to show off at the party. I chose the rubies. They resembled a bleeding heart.

  Rab had insisted on the party. I did not want one but he would not be dissuaded. He wanted a big public show – the conquering hero, Caesar returning to Rome. Watching him take the applause filled me with an overwhelming sadness. I had wasted my life, hadn’t I?

  As I cut the cake, with Rab’s hand laid over mine, my children smiled at me and I realised that my life had not been a waste. They were my reward. As my fingers closed around the knife, everyone shouted, ‘Make a wish!’

  I felt a tug on my skirt.

  ‘What did you wish for, Mummy?’ Ryan asked me.

  ‘For you to have a long and happy life, baby!’

  Giselle: I had believed humiliation was the greatest pain Ash would inflict on me. How could we know we were only two years from despair?

  Jay-Jay wriggled in my arms. My body was rigid with anger. The baby was unconcerned. He laughed, as if he were being tickled.

  ‘This is wrong,’ I said to Ash and the doctor, who was swabbing Jay-Jay’s mouth with an elongated Q-tip.

  Ash had demanded a DNA test.

  He remained silent. The doctor seemed uncomfortable, shamefaced by what he had been asked to do. He murmured to my son as he withdrew the Q-tip and secured it in a sealed tube.

  ‘This is wrong,’ I repeated. I turned to Ash. ‘You know he’s your son.’

  Ash said nothing.

  He had paid cash, counting out £300 onto a desk. As each note was laid down, my embarrassment and anger grew. I felt like one of those unfortunates who reveal their chaotic lives on car-crash television shows hosted by Jeremy Kyle or Jerry Springer.

  Nothing I had said to Ash had been able to convince him he was Jay-Jay’s father.

  ‘This is your son,’ I would tell him.

  ‘How do I know?’

  ‘You’re the only man I have ever slept with!’

  ‘I take precautions!’ he said.

  ‘You were drunk! And I got pregnant.’

  ‘You have to prove he’s mine!’ Ash said.

  ‘How? How can I prove that?’

  ‘I want a DNA test!’

  I refused. I was appalled, furious, but in the weeks that followed Ash was relentless, wearing me down to the point where I would have done anything to prove Jay-Jay was his son, if only to shame him.

  So there I was, justifying myself to Ash and the doctor. The doctor shared my discomfort. I could sense it in his body language and, when he looked at Ash, his expression screamed disapproval.

  ‘You’re treating me like trash,’ I told Ash. ‘You only have to look at the two boys to see they have the same father.’

  Paul was sitting beside me. The doctor smiled at him.

  He took another of the Q-tips and said in a gentle voice, ‘Open up, please.’

  I opened my mouth and he swabbed.

  The doctor then laid his hand on Paul’s shoulder and said to Ash, ‘Want me to test this little chap, too … to see if he’s yours?’

  Ash was oblivious to the doctor’s sense of humour.

  ‘No! No!’ he said in an obsequious tone. ‘I know he’s mine!’

  When the doctor was finished, I stood up quickly and made for the door, my face burning with shame.

  ‘Thank you,’ the doctor said in an apologetic voice. ‘We’ll be in touch with the results.’

  I brushed past Ash and escaped.

  It would be several weeks after my humiliation when Ash phoned me.

  ‘The results are back.’

  ‘Tell me what I already know,’ I said coldly.

  ‘It’s 99 per cent certain that I am the father.’

  I exploded. ‘I told you that!’

  ‘What about the one per cent?’ he said.

  I slammed down the phone. I felt cold. A tremendous coldness.

  One per cent!

  How could I have tolerated this spineless, vacillating weakling? Later, he would try to cajole me by taking an interest in Jay-Jay. He would stand by the side of our younger son’s high chair and ‘coo’. It was only after he became convinced that he was the boy’s father that he brought his mother to see Jay-Jay. I wonder how he explained to her that she was suddenly being introduced to a grandchild she had not known existed. Too little, too late. I was immune. I could not forgive him.

  ‘Giss-ellle!’ he would whine. ‘Don’t look at me like that!’

  ‘Like what?’ I demanded. ‘Like a liar, like a cheat, like someone who goes off and has a child with another man?’

  ‘I didn’t believe tha—’ he began.

  ‘Yes, you did!’ I told him.

  He would smile, try to embrace me, seek to persuade me I was making a ‘fuss’.

  ‘Enough!’ I would shout.

  And Ash would leave without saying another word.

  I knew that in the weeks and months ahead it would become increasingly difficult to tolerate his presence. But I was too afraid not to keep my promise. I had two sons to lose, now.

  Nothing was ever said, but I often wondered if Ash sensed my alarm, or had considered taking my boys and never allowing me to see them again. I held that thought as I went to the window to draw the curtains. Below me, in the fading light, a solitary figure was standing looking up at my window.

  It was Ash.

  In that second I knew he had.

  I could not conceive then how he would realise my worst fear.

  Two years, just two more years …

  Chapter 20

  The Final Straw

  ‘It’s about the men … what they need, what they want; it’s all about control.’

  Ian Stephen

  June: Until now, it was always between me and Rab. Now he demanded that I choose … him or Michelle.

  ‘I’m afraid Michelle’s carers won’t be coming back to your house, Mrs Thomson.’

  ‘It’s Rab, isn’t it?’ I said. She didn’t have to spell it out. I might have to put up with his obnoxious, controlling behaviour, but they didn’t. They’d had enough.

  We were standing in the hall. The Fife Council official spoke quietly, matter-of-factly and with utter finality.

  I felt a dreadful sinking feeling. What were we going to do now? Michelle was 25, and at the centre of an elaborate and essential network. She depended on a professional, selfless and wholly committed band of carers.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I told the official.

  She was sympathetic but adamant.

  ‘No one blames you,’ she said. ‘But you appreciate our position.’

  I saw her to the door, where she said, ‘We’ll try and work something out.’

  I knew, of course, that she couldn’t. I returned to the living room, where Rab was staring at the television. He looked up as I entered.

  ‘Load of fucking shit,’ he said.

  ‘What did you do, what did you say, Rab?’

  For once I wasn’t afraid. My blood was boiling. I might not have been able to stand up for myself – but this was about Michelle. When it came to her well-be
ing, I was robbed of fear.

  ‘Fuck all!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘They don’t think it’s fuck all,’ I retorted. ‘You’ve upset them and they don’t want to come back.’

  He fell silent.

  ‘Where does that leave Michelle?’ I demanded.

  ‘Fuck them! We’ll put her in a home. Then they won’t need to come back.’

  I could have killed Rab in that moment. I thought back to the episode when I held the gun to his head.

  ‘I should have pulled the trigger,’ I whispered.

  ‘What did you say?’ he asked, mystified.

  ‘You would put Michelle in a home?’

  ‘What’s the big fucking deal? We’ll get her back when this settles down,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘No, we won’t,’ I said.

  ‘No, we won’t what?’ he said.

  ‘She will not go into any home.’

  Rab looked at me intently.

  ‘Are you prepared to break up this family for the sake of putting Michelle in a home?’ he said.

  ‘I’m not going to break up this family, Rab. I’m going to free it … from you!’

  ‘Well, I’m not going any-fucking-where,’ he said.

  I stood up, looked down at him and then left the room. The phone was in the hall. I dialled the number of the woman who for years had been begging me to leave him. My sister answered.

  ‘It’s me, Linda. I’m leaving. And this time it’s for good.’

  Giselle: Why should we have believed any differently? It was always about them, wasn’t it? It always would be …

  My mother was dying. It was 16 January 2008.

  We could not reach her now. We stood by her bed and we wept for her, for Da and for ourselves. The world was coming to an end. Ma had been in hospital for weeks. She had never in her life been defeated, but she was now 75 years old. Age and illness were about to claim her.

  Everyone in the family was at the hospital. My two sons were at home, where Ash was looking after them. It was the only favour I had asked of him since the DNA fiasco. Paul and Jay-Jay, who had just turned two, had been to see their granny earlier in the day. The sight of her in her final hours had distressed them.

  This was a woman they adored – she had sung to them and danced with them. I wanted them to carry only those memories of her.