Her One Mistake(62)

Brian began unbuttoning my damp shirt, exposing an old, graying bra that bagged over my breasts. I recoiled from his touch, which made him suddenly stop. He asked if I did all these things on purpose. He’s not happy that after everything he does for me, this is the way I treat him.

He said he knew I was leaving him and taking Alice. He didn’t have to add that she was shivering when he got there, that her little body was drenched, but he said it anyway. Brian grabbed my arms and pressed his thumbs into my skin.

I cried out that I couldn’t do this anymore. He looked at me like he had no clue what I was talking about. I said I couldn’t live like this.

Brian asked me how I supposed I could live without him.

I didn’t have an answer to that. When I’d packed a suitcase and hauled Alice to the station, telling her we were going on holiday, I hadn’t thought through what we would do. Not long term. All I knew was that we needed to get away from Brian.

He reminded me that he’d found me and that he always would. He took a step back and said he couldn’t shake the image of us both standing so close to the edge, and that he’d need to talk to the doctor about this and see what he suggests. Brian added that he’d hate him to say I needed a stay in a hospital, but maybe it was for the best. He told me again I was turning into my mother.

I can’t stay but I don’t know how to get away. I can’t risk him having me put in a hospital. He’ll be watching me even closer now.





HARRIET


In the lead-up to Christmas, as Charlotte became embroiled in the aftermath of her sister’s wedding and plans to take the children away for the holidays, I found myself increasingly dependent on my father.

We met up in various places over Dorset, each time somewhere new. With him living in Southampton, he wasn’t so close that Brian would ever bump into him, but he was near enough to see us for a day. I hid our meet-ups from Brian, always arranging them when my husband was at work. Seeing my dad was an escape from the downward spiral of life at home, and I began to look forward to watching his blossoming relationship with Alice.

There were times when I was resentful, particularly when I watched him running away from the waves with a squealing Alice or making her cars out of sand.

“Why didn’t you try harder?” I’d asked, when he’d insisted on buying us ice cream in the middle of January. I had missed out on so many moments like this. I’d been fine not knowing what I hadn’t had, but now that he was back in my life, a hole had opened up that I hadn’t realized was there.

Then I would watch Alice curl up on his lap like a contented cat, in awe of his card tricks, and I wondered if it really mattered what had happened in the past. It was more important that I didn’t let it ruin the future. Alice had a grandfather in her life now, and one she doted on. And secretly I was excited at the thought of having my dad again.

Les felt like a world away from my real life and I began telling him snippets about the man I had married, certain he would never meet Brian. It was good to finally share the truth with someone, and even more when that person was my father. Eventually I told him how Brian had led me to believe I was crazy.

“I can assure you, you are not crazy,” he said.

“He drops it into conversations that I’m like Mum.”

“He never even knew your mother,” my dad said angrily. We were sipping hot chocolates in the café of a National Trust house watching Alice play outside. “And she wasn’t crazy. She just had a lot of anxieties.”

I didn’t tell him I was more like her than I liked, but it was what I was thinking.

“Besides,” he said, “being like her is not a bad thing. She was a very good mother and in her own way she always put you first.”

I dropped my head so he couldn’t see the tears that had sprung into my eyes. “I can’t see a way out,” I said.

“There’s always a way out.”

“I have no money. Not a penny of my own. I don’t even have my own bank account. If I walked out, I wouldn’t be able to buy us our next meal.”

“Well, I can help,” he offered.

“Thank you, but with what? You’ve already told me your state pension barely gets you through the week.” He didn’t have his own house and was still in the rented flat he and Marilyn had lived in for years.

“So you need to go to the police,” he persisted.

“And say what? I have no scars to show them,” I said, rolling up my sleeves. “No bruises. I’ve no way of proving he’s abusing me.”

“But somehow you need to get away, take Alice and—”

“I’ve tried,” I cried. “Brian finds me. He’s done it before,” I told him. “Somehow he manages to track me down and haul me home, and I know he’ll take Alice away from me. He’ll prove I’m crazy, that’s the beauty of what he does,” I said sarcastically. “Brian has it all worked out.”

“You really think he wants to take her from you?” my dad asked. “I don’t get the impression he has much of a relationship with Alice.”

I watched Alice pick up a leaf and carefully tuck it into her pocket. “He loves her,” I said. But I also saw the way their conversations looked awkward, that he didn’t always know how to talk to her. That when the three of us were together, Brian often hung on the edge like an outsider. Surely he must have noticed that too, though I’m not convinced it would matter in the end. “I have no doubt he’d make sure she was taken from me,” I said. “If he thought it was what he had to do.”