by Fiona Barton
‘Anyway, you’ve got Glen,’ she used to say.
When she sat down in the kitchen, all pale and breathless, Dad sat with her and held her hand. ‘It’s all right, Evelyn,’ he said.
‘I just need a minute, Frank.’
‘Your mother just needs a bit of reassurance, Jean,’ Dad had told me when I first tried to suggest they talk to the doctor. So I reassured her as well.
‘Everything’s going to be fine, Mum. It’ll all get sorted out, you’ll see. It’s a horrible mistake. Glen has told them where he was and what he was doing and the police will put it right.’
She looked at me hard, as though she was testing me. ‘Are you sure, Jean?’
I was.
After that, they didn’t visit. I used to go and see them.
‘It’s too much for your mum to come over,’ Dad said on the phone. I’d do her hair every week. She used to enjoy going to the hairdresser’s ‘for an outing’ once a month, but she went out less and less after Glen’s arrest. It wasn’t his fault, but some days I found it hard to even like him.
Like the day he told me he’d seen my scrapbooks. It was a couple of days after he was released on bail. He’d known when he got home, but he waited. I knew he was building up to something. I could tell.
And when he found me looking at a picture of a baby in a magazine, he exploded.
My love of babies was obsessive, he said. He was angry when he said it. It was because they’d found my books at the back of the airing cupboard where I kept them, behind the water tank. They were only pictures. What harm was there in that?
He was shouting at me. He didn’t shout very often, he usually just closed down and stopped talking when he got mad. Didn’t like to show his feelings, really. We’d sit and watch a film together and I’d be bawling my eyes out and he’d just sit there. I thought he was so strong at first, that it was manly, but I don’t know now. Perhaps he just doesn’t feel things the way other people do.
But that day, he shouted. There were three little scrapbooks, each one filled with pictures I had cut out of the magazines at work, newspapers and birthday cards. I wrote ‘My Babies’ on the cover of each book, because they were. So many babies. I had my favourites, of course. There was Becky, with her striped Babygro and matching headband, and Theo, a chubby toddler with a smile that made me shiver.
My babies.
I suppose I knew Glen would see it as a dig at him, at him being infertile, that’s why I hid them, but I couldn’t stop myself.
‘You’re sick!’ he shouted at me.
He made me feel ashamed. Perhaps I was sick.
The thing was that he wouldn’t talk to me about what he called ‘our problem’.
It wasn’t meant to be a problem. It’s just that having a baby was all I wanted to do in my life. Lisa next door felt the same.
She moved next door with her bloke, Andy, a couple of months after us. She was nice – not too nosey, but interested in me. She was pregnant when they moved in and Glen and I were trying, so we had loads to talk about, lots of plans to make – how we’d bring up our babies, what colour to do the nurseries, names, local schools, E numbers. All those things.
She didn’t look like me, Lisa. She had short black hair all spiked up with bleached white tips and three earrings in one ear. She looked like one of the models in the big photos in the salon. Beautiful, really. But Glen wasn’t sure about her.
‘Doesn’t look like our sort of person, Jeanie. Looks a bit of a flake. Why do you keep inviting her round?’
I think he was a bit jealous of sharing me, and he and Andy had nothing in common. Andy was a scaffolder, always away somewhere. He went to Italy once. Anyway he went off with a woman he met on his travels and Lisa was left on her own, struggling by on benefits while she tried to get anything out of him for the children.
Lisa was lonely and we got on like a house on fire, so I went round to hers mostly, to save disturbing Glen.
I used to tell her the stories I heard at the salon and she’d laugh her head off. She loved a good gossip and a cup of coffee. She said it was an escape from the kids. She had two by then – a boy and a girl, Kane and Daisy – while I continued to wait for my turn.
After our second wedding anniversary, I went to the doctor’s on my own to talk about why I couldn’t get pregnant.
‘You’re very young, Mrs Taylor,’ Dr Williams said. ‘Relax and try not to think about it. That’s the best thing to do.’
I tried. But after another year without a baby, I persuaded Glen to come with me. I told him there must be something wrong with me and he agreed to come, to support me.
Dr Williams listened and nodded and smiled. ‘Let’s do some tests,’ he said, and our treks to the hospital began.
They did me first. I was willing to do anything to get pregnant and I put up with the speculums, the examinations, the ultrasounds, the endless prodding.
‘Tubes as clean as a whistle,’ the gynaecologist said at the end of the tests. ‘Everything healthy.’
Glen went next. I don’t think he wanted to, but I’d been through it all and he couldn’t really back out. It was awful, he said. They made him feel like a piece of meat. Samples, plastic cups, old torn porn magazines. All that. I tried to make it better by saying how grateful I was, but it didn’t work. Then we waited.
He had almost a zero sperm count. And that was the end of it. Poor Glen. He was devastated at first. He felt he’d be seen as a failure, less of a man, and was so blinded by that that perhaps he couldn’t see what it meant for me. No babies. No one to call me Mummy, no life as a mother, no grandchildren. He tried to comfort me at the beginning when I cried, but I think he got bored with it and then hardened to it after a while. He said it was for my own good. That I had to move on.
Lisa was brilliant about it and I tried not to hate her luck because I liked her, but it was hard. And she knew how hard it was for me, so she said I could be the kids’ ‘other mother’ – I think it was a joke but I gave her a hug and tried not to cry. I was part of their lives and they became part of mine.
I persuaded Glen to make a gate between the back gardens for them to come in and out and I bought a paddling pool one summer. Glen was nice with them, but he didn’t get involved like I did, really. He’d watch them through the window sometimes and wave. He didn’t try to stop them coming round and sometimes, when Lisa had a date – she went on those websites to try to find the perfect man – they stayed in the spare room, sleeping top to tail. I would do fish fingers and peas and tomato sauce for dinner and watch a Disney DVD with them.
Then when they settled down in bed, I’d sit watching them go to sleep. Drinking them in. Glen didn’t like that. Said I was acting creepy. But every moment with them was special. Even changing their nappies when they were little. As they got older they called me ‘geegee’ because they couldn’t get their tongue round ‘Jean’ and would fling themselves at my legs when they came round so I had to walk with one on each of my feet. ‘My sweet peas’, I called them. And they’d laugh.
Glen would go up to his study when our games got too wild – ‘too much noise’, he’d say – but I didn’t mind. I preferred having them to myself.
I even thought about giving up my job and looking after them full-time so Lisa could go out to work, but Glen put his foot down.
‘We need your money, Jean. And they’re not our kids.’
And he stopped apologizing for being infertile and started saying, ‘At least we have each other, Jean. We’re lucky really.’
I tried to feel lucky, but I didn’t.
I’ve always believed in luck. I love the fact that people can change their lives instantly. Look at Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And the Lottery. One minute an ordinary woman on the street. Next, a millionaire. I buy a ticket every week and can while away a morning fantasizing about winning. I know what I’d do. I’d buy a big house at the seaside – somewhere sunny, maybe abroad – and adopt orphans. Glen doesn’t really figure in my plans �
� he wouldn’t approve and I don’t want those pursed lips wrecking my daydreams. Glen stays as part of my reality.
The thing is that the two of us wasn’t enough for me, but he was hurt that I needed anyone but him. That was probably why he wouldn’t consider adoption – ‘I’m not having someone prying into our lives. No one’s business but ours, Jeanie’ – let alone something as ‘extreme’ as artificial insemination or surrogacy. Lisa and I had discussed it one evening over a bottle of wine and it all sounded possible. I tried to introduce it casually into a conversation with Glen.
‘Disgusting ideas, if you ask me,’ he said. End of discussion.
So I stopped crying in front of him, but every time a friend or relative said they were pregnant it was like having my heart ripped out. My dreams were filled with babies, lost babies, endless searches for them, and sometimes I’d wake up still feeling the weight of a baby in my arms.
I began to dread sleep and was losing weight. I went back to the doctor and he gave me tablets to make me feel better. I didn’t tell Glen. I didn’t want him to be ashamed of me.
And I began my collection, quietly tearing out the pictures and slipping them in my handbag. Then, when there were too many, I started sticking them in my books. I’d wait until I was alone and get them out and sit on the floor, stroking each picture and saying their name. I could spend hours like that, pretending they were mine.
The police said Glen did the same thing on his computer.
He told me the day he shouted at me about the scrapbooks that I drove him to look for porn on the computer. It was a wicked thing to say, but he was so angry it just came out.
He said I’d shut him out because of my obsession with having a baby. That he’d had to look for comfort elsewhere.
‘It’s just porn,’ he said to me when he realized he’d gone too far. When he saw my face. ‘All blokes like a bit of porn, don’t they, Jeanie? It doesn’t do any harm to anyone. Just a bit of fun.’
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know all blokes liked porn. The subject had never come up in the salon.
When I cried, he told me it wasn’t his fault. He’d been drawn into online porn by the internet – they shouldn’t allow these things on the web. It was a trap for innocent men. He’d become addicted to it – ‘it’s a medical condition, Jeanie, an addiction’ – he couldn’t help himself, but he’d never looked at children. Those images just ended up on his computer – like a virus.
I didn’t want to think about it any more. It was too hard to keep everything apart in my head. My Glen and this other man the police talked about. I needed to keep things straight.
I wanted to believe him. I loved Glen. He was my world. I was his, he said. We were each other’s.
And the idea of me being guilty of pushing him to look at those horrible photos grew in my head, crowding out the questions about Glen. Of course, I didn’t find out about his ‘addiction’ until after the police came knocking on our door that Easter Saturday, and then it was too late to say or do anything.
I had to keep his secrets as well as mine.
Chapter 20
Friday, 11 June 2010
The Widow
WE HAVE CROISSANTS and fruit salad for breakfast at the hotel. Big linen napkins and a cafetière of proper coffee.
Kate won’t let me eat on my own. ‘I’ll keep you company,’ she says and plonks herself down at the table. She gets a cup from the tea and coffee tray under the television and pours herself a coffee.
She’s all business-like now. ‘We really need to sort out the contract today, Jean,’ she says. ‘The paper would like to get the formalities out of the way so we can press on with the interview. It’s Friday already and they want to publish it tomorrow. I’ve printed a copy of the contract for you to sign. It’s quite straightforward. You agree to give us an exclusive interview for an agreed fee.’
I can’t really remember when I’d said yes. Maybe I hadn’t. ‘But—’ I say. But she just passes me several sheets of paper and I start to read them because I don’t know what else to do. It is all ‘the first party’ and ‘the second party’ and lots of clauses. ‘I haven’t got a clue what it means,’ I say. Glen was the one who dealt with all the paperwork and signed everything.
She looks anxious and starts to try and explain the legal terms. ‘It really is very simple,’ she says. She really wants me to sign it. She must be getting grief from her boss, but I put the contract down and shake my head and she sighs.
‘Would you like a lawyer to have a look at it for you?’ she asks. I nod. ‘Do you know one?’ she says and I nod again. I call Tom Payne. Glen’s lawyer. It’s been a while – must be two years – but I still have his number on my mobile.
‘Jean! How are you? I was sorry to hear about Glen’s accident,’ he says when the secretary finally puts me through.
‘Thank you, Tom, that’s kind of you. Look, I need your help. The Daily Post wants me to do an exclusive interview with them and they want me to sign a contract. Will you look at it for me?’
There is a pause and I can imagine the surprise on his face.
‘An interview?’ he says. ‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Jean? Have you thought this through?’
His real questions remain unasked and I’m grateful to him for that. I tell him I’ve thought about it and this is the only way to get the press off my doorstep. I’m starting to sound like Kate. I don’t really need the money. Glen got a quarter of a million in compensation for the trick the police pulled – dirty money we put away in a building society – and there’ll be the insurance money from his death. But I might as well take the fifty thousand pounds the paper wants to pay me.
Tom sounds unconvinced, but he agrees to read the contract and Kate emails it over to him. We sit and wait and she tries to persuade me to have a facial or something. I don’t want to be fiddled with again so I say no and just sit there.
Tom and I have had a special bond since the day Glen’s case ended.
We stood together waiting for him to be released from the dock and Tom couldn’t look at me. I think he was scared of what he’d see in my eyes.
I can see us standing there. The end of the ordeal, but not the end really. I’d been so grateful for the order that the court case had given my life. Every day planned out. Every day setting out from home at 8 a.m., dressed smartly, like I was going to work in an office. Every day, home at five thirty. My job was to be supportive and say nothing.
The court was like a sanctuary. I liked the echoing halls and the breezes wafting the notices on the boards and the canteen chatter.
Tom had taken me there before Glen was due to appear, to be committed for trial, so I could see what it was like. I’d seen the Old Bailey on the telly – on the news with a reporter standing on the pavement in front of it, talking about a murder or terrorist or something, and the inside, in police dramas. But it was still nothing like I expected. Dim, smaller than it looked on TV, dusty-smelling like a classroom, old-fashioned with lots of dark wood.
It was lovely and quiet when we went for a look round before business began for the day. Hardly anyone else there. Bit different when Glen appeared so they could set a date for his trial. It was packed. People had queued to see him. They brought sandwiches and flasks like it was the sales or something. And the reporters crammed into the press seats behind me. I sat with my head down, pretending to look for something in my handbag, until Glen was brought into the box by the prison warders. He looked small. I’d brought in his best suit for the appearance and he’d had a shave, but he still looked small. He looked over and winked. Like it was nothing. I tried to smile at him but my mouth was too dry, my lips got stuck to my teeth.
It was over so quickly I hardly had time to look at him again before he disappeared down the stairs. I was allowed to see him later. He’d changed out of his suit into his prison stuff, a sort of tracksuit, and taken off his best shoes. ‘Hello, Jeanie love. Well, that was a bit of a farce, wasn’t it? The
whole thing is a farce, my solicitor says,’ he said.
Well, he would, I wanted to say. You’re paying him to say just that.
The trial was set for February, four months away, and Glen was sure it would be thrown out before then. ‘It’s all nonsense, Jeanie,’ he said. ‘You know that. The police are lying to make themselves look good. They need an arrest and I was one of the poor sods who was driving a blue van in the area that day.’ He gave my hand a squeeze and I squeezed back. He was right. It was nonsense.
I went home and pretended everything was normal.
Inside the house it was. My little world stayed exactly the same – same walls, same cups, same furniture. But outside, everything had shifted. The pavement in front of the house was like a soap opera with people coming and going and sitting looking at my house. Hoping to get a glimpse of me.
I had to come out sometimes, and when I did I dressed anonymously, covering myself completely, and I steeled myself in the hall before leaving suddenly and quickly. It was impossible to avoid the cameras but I hoped they’d get tired of the same shots of me walking down the path. And I learned to hum a song in my head so I could blank out the remarks and questions.
The visits to the prison were the worst part. It meant catching a bus and the press would follow me to the stop and photograph me and the other passengers as we waited together. Everyone got upset with them and then me. It wasn’t my fault, but they blamed me. For being the wife.
I tried walking to different bus stops, but I got fed up with playing their games, and in the end I just put up with it and waited for them to get bored.
I’d sit on the 380 bus to Belmarsh with a plastic carrier bag on my knee, pretending to be on a shopping trip. I’d wait to see if someone else would press the bell before the prison stop and then get off quickly. Other women would get off as well, with a tangle of crying kids and pushchairs, and I’d walk a long way behind them to the visitors’ centre so people wouldn’t think I was like them.