‘If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,’ he joked. But by then I had not learned how quickly a joke could turn sour, so I laughed along as though it was the funniest thing anyone had ever said. It was fine, I thought. He works hard and supports us. I don’t need to know the ins and outs. Only the pit of my stomach was protesting; didn’t couples share everything? There weren’t supposed to be lies and secrets. That’s not how it played out on the screen in the hundreds of films I had watched growing up as a kid.
Sometimes he would come home from wherever he had been and look at me sat on the sofa as though I was a leech. ‘You could have cleaned up.’ There was a sourness to his tone that I was starting to hear more regularly, but which I attributed to tiredness.
The flat was spotless. I had nothing else to do with my days anyway. I had suggested I get a part-time job, but he had insisted that I didn’t need to, that everything was taken care of and that all I needed to do was be here for when he came home.
‘I need you, babes.’ He would put those strong arms around me, the harsh words he had said moments ago already evaporated and forgotten. He would draw me close, I would feel him press himself against me and I knew I was worth something.
I thought about my mum often; I would call her from the flat when he was out. I don’t know how that became a pattern, but it did. Somehow a phone call with my own mother became something I felt I needed to hide from him because after one month of living together, I still hadn’t visited as I had promised. Whenever I mentioned her, he would wrinkle his nose and busy himself with anything to hand, a laptop or his phone usually. My suggestions of a day out and popping in to see my mum quickly evaporated around us.
I began to wonder why it was becoming more difficult to get him to do things for me.
‘I could take a taxi?’ I said to him one day. ‘It would save me bothering you.’ I felt a nervous lump form in my throat.
‘But I like you bothering me.’ He wrapped me up in his arms. I felt the lump melt away.
Then he pushed me back a couple of inches so I could see his face.
‘Babes, you really want to go back to that life? What is there for you now? This is your life, here, with me. Things are really starting to take off – soon we can move out of this place into somewhere spectacular, and, you know’ – he looked down and touched my stomach – ‘maybe have a little family of our own one day.’
I felt my heart leap because I had already noticed that I was late. My cycles had been as regular as clockwork for over four years. So I knew. But something made me keep it a secret for a little while longer, perhaps the foresight that it was to be so short-lived.
I enjoyed those few short weeks of just me knowing about my baby, each of us simply existing, one within the other. I cherished having something so precious that was dependent on only me. Even then, not knowing how soon it would be gone, I loved it so hard, so fiercely. When I told him he would soon be a dad, although he laughed and spun me around, telling me what a clever girl I was, he went very quiet for days afterwards. It wasn’t long after that something switched within him, as though he could sense there was a possibility I could love something or someone more than him.
Just eleven weeks into the pregnancy, as I lay there bleeding, the baby falling out of me, I played the films out in my mind. I had watched them a hundred times: Dirty Dancing and When a Man Loves a Woman were particular favourites and reminded me that I could still be saved.
It wasn’t his fault, I told myself over and over. Next time I would remain sullen; less conceited. I still loved him.
Instagram post: 27th April 2019
Hello, my little cleaners, how are you all doing on this bright spring morning? I have been busy buying cushions. They are my absolute favourite thing to buy because they really are one of the main statement pieces to each room. I get a little obsessed. I like to match them to each season, so I am busy adding some yellows and greens and pinks to my sofas now. It’s out with the winter accessories and in with some spring pieces. I hope you enjoy looking at my photos as much as I enjoy creating the looks for you all to enjoy.
Have a great day.
Mrs C x
#ilovespring #MrsClean #cleanstagrammer #cleaning
127,980 likes
mrsj.r You are such an inspiration, Mrs Clean. I love the mix of the spring colours.
carolineness17 I would never have put green and pink together like that, but it really works, doesn’t it?
vinsta_gramma I’m getting these for my wife.
lucybest65 It must be thrilling to sit around all day with nothing to do but fluff your cushions.
vinsta_gramma I’ve been telling my wife that for years lol.
6 Now
We were all sat in the lounge at the end of the weekend. There was a gardening programme on the TV that none of us were watching. Mini and Karen had been shooting a TikTok video, Sophie had a pile of crocheting material in her lap, halfway through a pink scarf that I had been eyeing up since she began.
I had sensed an atmosphere forming about fifteen minutes ago, but I was trying to ignore it. I caught the girls looking
