I nodded.
‘Although to be honest, I made a specific effort to stay behind tonight because I knew you said you would be taking advantage of the extended classroom opening times, and so I purposely hung around a little longer. I had every intention of popping down to see you, and then, there you were.’
I felt a swell of something inside and I tried to conceal the smile, but it escaped, and I felt my face light up.
‘And I managed not only to see you but to finally blag you to come out for a drink with me.’ He smiled on one side of his mouth, his eyes sparkled.
‘Yes, you did.’ I laughed.
I finished the cider and Will headed off to the bar and returned with two more. We chatted about my project and I found myself opening up to him about the work I was doing and the inspiration behind it, and we also talked a little about my living arrangements and how I was beginning to notice the age difference between me and my house mates. I could feel an energy building between us as we occasionally spoke over one another, both keen to keep the conversation going.
I looked at my phone at 10.45 p.m. I had missed the last train home.
‘Any chance of a lift?’ I asked.
‘Thank you for having that drink with me, Regi. I had a nice time getting to know you a bit,’ Will said in the car as we pulled up outside the house, and my mind was thrown back to dates that ended with boys in cars and those electric moments seated next to one another, not knowing if the other would turn and try to kiss you. I opened the door and quickly stepped out.
‘Thanks, I’ll see you soon.’ I gave him a small wave.
As Will drove off, the feeling of what could have happened in the car lingered with me. It was nostalgic; there was nothing like the sensation of a new relationship blossoming, and that was the part I would always remember the most.
23
Then
The bruises from the last beating faded, but I knew they would be replaced with new ones soon enough. I had to up my game. I had to get smarter, find a way of doing it all. Plenty of mums managed to raise a baby and keep a house. But our house was bigger than any house I had lived in before, and although I hated to admit it, it was too much for me.
I had tried to make it my own in the small ways I could, but it was rare that I was in town and could meander the shops. I had to plan so far in advance and even then, D was so controlling, never allowing me to spend more than an hour out as he waited impatiently in the car, texting me every ten minutes asking me how much longer I was going to be. I ordered a lot of stuff online. Boxes and packages would arrive and were my only comfort and delivery drivers my only company as D’s trips away grew increasingly longer. He had begun to travel for his work, and he was earning a lot more money. I didn’t know how much and I was never given access to any accounts, just one debit card to order food and essentials with or occasionally a small pile of cash would appear on the kitchen surface the morning he left on his latest trip. There was a temptation to stuff it all under a mattress so I could take me and Baby Boy away somewhere one day. But I allowed those thoughts to evaporate when I imagined what would happen when he found me. And he would find me.
Although D was absent for much of the time, when he returned he would flip between needing me and wanting to knock me into the middle of next week.
I felt as though I was just bumbling through each day, trying to make the best of what was around me. I guessed that I was strong because that was what strong women did, didn’t they? They could manage to stay in a relationship where they weren’t always treated fairly and equally. That too I had learned from films, as well as watching my own mother put up with more than her fair share of abuse. For all the time my dad was there and I witnessed the endless fights and boxing matches, she would pick herself up, slap on the make-up and get on with her day. It was only after he left that she started to fall apart. It was as though the energy that he brought into the house, as negative as it was, was the only thing that fuelled her and gave her the courage to carry on.
Baby Boy, who was now three months old, smiling and gurgling and trying to roll over, gave me my courage. He was too young still to see the abuse, and I told myself that by the time he was old enough to understand, things would have calmed down. D and I would fall into a calmer existence. I knew he had it in him. I just had to help draw it out of him.
I wasn’t to know that what I really should have been doing was looking at the future without him. If I had the foresight to know that things rarely got better, that they only got worse, then I would have told myself to run, take Baby Boy and go far away. Find someone somewhere, a refuge, anything where we would be safe.
The beginning of the end was when D brought home the other guy. At the time I had no idea who he was or what he did, but very soon I would come to know how he would change my life forever.
‘This is my new business partner, babe, Fabrice.’ D looked pleased with
