Since I was a child.
Since forever.
So why would I have read the signs? This was different—not dirty, not nasty, but different.
So I didn’t see it coming. It was a total surprise that I could make love with a man without the fear and dread that had always accompanied this act. But make love we did. It was a new experience for me, and afterwards I cried. Peter was mortified.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, looking at me with such warmth. ‘I thought it was OK, I thought it was the right time.’ He looked sad.
I didn’t know what to say; I didn’t know what I felt. All I knew was that something had happened to me and it felt right.
‘It’s OK,’ I said softly, afraid that if I spoke any louder he would disappear. ‘Honestly, it’s OK, I’m OK.’
Without either of us speaking, we cuddled up and fell asleep. It felt safe. Later, he took me home and we didn’t mention what
had happened. I was confused and worried. What had happened back there? What was that feeling? I was afraid to be happy, afraid that if I accepted that I was falling in love, it would all be stolen from me. It seemed God was listening to me now, but it was so new that I was confused and a bit scared, if truth be told.
The next time we saw each other, we drank a bit of champagne and I told him of my fears and confusion. He replied with a kiss so gentle and warm that all of my previous feelings disappeared. It felt so good, so right. It felt as if there were only two people in the whole world. Him and me.
I don’t know if it was the champagne but when we went to bed I lay by his side and began to cry, tiny little tears, and I told him everything. I told him of my childhood, the abuse and my being afraid to love, even that I didn’t know what love was. He was the first person I had told about Bill, the only person—apart from Mum, that is—and he was horrified and sympathetic and angry all at once. He told me that none of it had been my fault; I was only a child. My fear had always been that I would be blamed, or not believed, but Peter reassured me that this was nonsense. It felt easy telling him, it seemed right. He held me until I went to sleep. I felt safe.
The following day I was sure things would be different with us. I don’t know what I expected but what I didn’t expect was that nothing had changed. Peter was the same, I was the same, but something was different. When he caressed my body, he was so loving and gentle that I relaxed and began to respond. He made me feel special, and this special was good. His touch
was magical, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and we made the most beautiful love that could be imagined. Yes, I cried, but these tears were tears of joy.
Over the next few months this wonderful, love-bringing man taught me self-respect and self-worth. Peter loved and believed in me. Yes, the sexual side was wonderful and I began to realise that I could enjoy sex, but the whole package—being loved and the way this made me feel—changed me completely. I thought I had loved before but I knew now that I hadn’t. This love was different; it was complete and good. In this love, I had grown—grown as a woman and as a person. Peter gave me confidence, confidence to be me, to do what I wanted and to be OK with the consequences. He taught me how love and sex could be wonderful. Not dirty, not nasty, not evil. He made me realise that I was capable of enjoying life and that it was OK to do so. But most of all he helped me to find me. His love was the beginning of my actually liking the person I was becoming and learning that it was OK to feel that way.
We travelled round the country together, going to design fairs, staying in hotels, and at Christmas he took me to London where we drove along looking at the Christmas lights. It was drizzling and the rain looked like tears. The lights looked smudged yet beautiful and their beauty stunned me. It was like a fairyland to my eyes. I gasped and sighed at what I was seeing.
‘You’re like a little girl,’ Peter said kindly. ‘A little girl anticipating Christmas.’
I suppose I was in a way—although as a little girl Christmas had never been worth the anticipation. But yes, I had waited for
it, each year, with more hope and prayers than I should have invested. But I wasn’t a little girl now; I was a grown woman, a woman in love with a man who I knew ultimately wouldn’t be mine. No matter how much he loved me, he would never change his views and ask me to marry him, or even move in with him. He was a free spirit, too independent to ever be tied down. What we had was wonderful but it wasn’t going anywhere. As I watched the lights fading, there was little difference between the tears of rain on the window and the salty tears running down my cheeks.
At our hotel that night, I had an idea for a story about a little character and a mirror. Peter thought the idea was really good and encouraged me to write more. This was the beginning of another dream that I had—to write for children. A few years later, with the confidence he had begun to give me and the belief in my character, a dream was realised. I wrote this story and self-published my book to great acclaim.
Early in the New Year, the design company we worked for was disbanded. Peter and I continued to work together for a while on our own projects but gradually I was coming to realise that I wanted more from a relationship than he could give. It was one of the hardest decisions I had ever made in my life but I knew I had to end things between us before I got hurt.
He was distraught when I told him. ‘Don’t do this,’ he begged. ‘We can still see each other.’
Through my tears I told him I had to. ‘I want more than you can give me. I always have.’ I was as honest as I had always
been with him. ‘You never made me any promises about commitment. You never lied about that, but I want more.’
We held on to each other for a long time, and through his tears he whispered, ‘But I never got to kiss the back of your knees. I have kissed every other beautiful part of you.’
I almost changed my mind. I wanted to change my mind but I didn’t. I wanted to thank him for all that he had given me. To tell him how he had changed my life, how he had changed me. I wanted so much to let him know that life was now a good place for me and it was mostly thanks to him. I wanted so much to say thank you for helping me to realise the beauty and wonder of love, both sexually and emotionally. I wanted to say that I still loved him, that I’d always love him and thank him for loving me. I wanted to say so much.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t speak through my tears.
As he left the house, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Should I have just held on to what I had and been satisfied? Should I run after him and say everything would be all right?
But I didn’t. It wasn’t right. If I had stayed there, I would never have moved on to the next happy time, the next love and to the rest of my life.
Over the next few months I became a teenager again. I started going out to nightclubs and rediscovered my love of dancing. My daughters often told me off for the sexy outfits I wore—‘You can’t go out in that, Mum!’ they’d exclaim, to my great amusement. I had lots of dates with men, going out for
dinner and even to watch the local football team playing, but none of them were serious.
Then one night, when I was out clubbing with a girlfriend, a man called Daniel came over and asked me to dance. He was dark-haired with the deepest brown eyes I’d ever seen and once I was in his arms I felt giddy and could almost hear my heart beating. I wasn’t sure what was happening—I didn’t want anything to happen so soon after parting from Peter. But once we got talking, we couldn’t stop. We sat up chatting till four in the morning the first night we met, because there was just so much to say.
Over the next few weeks we had an old-fashioned courtship. He brought me handmade chocolates, flowers and gifts, and I could tell he was a true romantic. No pressure, no hurry, just a gentle getting to know each other.
About two months after meeting Daniel, I heard that my dad had been quite ill and, after many attempts, found the courage to ring home to ask after him. Mum hadn’t been speaking to me since the end of my marriage to John. She couldn’t forgive me for letting such a wealthy, prestigious man slip through my fingers, even though I told her about what he’d done to me. I used to ring to speak to Dad when I was sure she would be out but a couple of times she intercepted the calls and responded with scathing sarcasm, making me nervous about calling again. But now Dad was ill and Mum was happy to let the prodigal daughter return to help her play the role of worried wife. I visited Dad in hospital and was distraught when he told me that he was dying.
‘You’re not going to die, Dad. You can beat this. You’ve been through worse than this.’ I tried not to cry, not to let him see how scared I was.
‘No, my love, this time it’s beaten me.’ He seemed calm now, almost relieved. ‘Bye, bye,’ he murmured, before nodding off to sleep. These were his last words to me, as he died later that night. My beloved dad was gone. I had loved him with all my heart, even though I knew he was weak, too weak to stand up to Mum, too weak to protect me. He was a kind, gentle soul and I mourned for him.
I stayed with my mother for a few days, making arrangements for the funeral. Although in public she played the grieving widow, crying whenever someone came to offer their condolences, in private she talked and talked about the love of her life: Bill. The man who had hurt me so badly. No thought for my dad, no thought for me, just her grief for the man with whom she had had a decades-long affair. She would ask me to hold her while she cried for him and I found this very hard. She had never held me, as a child or as a young woman, but now she wanted me to hold her while she cried for my abuser.
We started clearing out Dad’s things and Mum moaned about him hoarding souvenirs that we had given him as children. He wasn’t long dead, but still she was berating him. She didn’t behave badly to me during this time, but only because she needed me to play a supporting role in her current drama. None of her other children came to stay, so for once she needed me.
As the year progressed, so did my romance with Daniel. One evening, after we’d been playing music by candlelight and
sharing a bottle of wine, we made love. This time I was ready. This time I wanted it. He was kind, thoughtful and gentle. It wasn’t scary, or nasty, or bad. This time was good. Love was back, different and right. He didn’t know about my past. I hadn’t told him. I hadn’t told my family either—except Mum. I’d told her, a long time ago when I was a child.
But now life was good. Because Daniel didn’t know about the abuse and my childhood, I suppose he wasn’t surprised when things were good. But I was. I knew it would happen one day, but in the back of my mind I had often wondered if it would be OK. So we made love and it was more than OK. I knew then that I loved him for all the right reasons. I knew we were going to be happy.
One evening we were going out for a meal and, in my rush to get ready, I had forgotten to put my dress rings back on my fingers. At the end of the meal I was fiddling with my bare, ringless fingers.
‘Perhaps you should put this one on,’ Daniel said, sliding a tiny box across the table. ‘See if this one fits.’
I was taken by surprise because we hadn’t discussed getting serious. I opened the box with shaky hands. Inside was a tiny solitaire, a diamond on white gold. It was beautiful.
‘Which finger shall I put it on?’ I asked nervously.
Daniel took my hand and placed the ring on my engagement finger. I was speechless. So much for not getting serious! There were two elderly ladies on the next table and they were sighing and smiling at us. It was a lovely romantic evening. A new memory for me to treasure.
Shortly after this, we moved into a brand new house, our first proper home together, and in 1987 we got married. Unlike my other relationships, I never rowed or argued with Daniel. Instead we laughed a lot. I could never have had this relationship if I’d still been taking tranquillisers because it was totally real and present and honest. I chose Daniel with a clear head and an open heart. He knew about my mother and how she hadn’t loved me as a child; he knew that I had had to give up my beloved son Jack for adoption; he knew about my tranquilliser addiction; in fact, he knew most things. The only thing I hadn’t told him was about the abuse by Uncle Bill. I couldn’t bring myself to take those memories out of the closet. It didn’t seem necessary any more.
I still occasionally suffered from panic attacks when I was under a lot of stress, but with the help of my new husband and my beautiful daughters I would manage to ride out the storm.
L
ucy and I were watching television one evening, a programme about British soldiers fighting abroad, when she suddenly remarked that we didn’t even know if my son Jack was alive or dead. That was a horrible thought. What if he was dead? I would never see him again.
It was then that I made up my mind to try and find him. When I told Daniel, he was very supportive and helped me to put the wheels in motion. I contacted social services and was put in touch with a social worker called Sally, who worked in the adoption section. After looking into my case, she rang me back and said that in her opinion I had been treated very badly. According to her, my son should have been placed in foster care and I should have had open access until I was well enough to have him back.
I didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything.
They got it wrong, she said. She went on to say that she would find out anything she could and report back as soon as
she had anything to tell me. It was 1992, the year of his twenty-first birthday.
A couple of weeks later, Sally phoned to tell me that she had contacted Jack’s adoptive father. I tried to contain my excitement as I listened to what she told me. She said that this man’s wife, my son’s adoptive mother, had just died, so he didn’t think it was a good idea to tell his son about my ‘interest in his welfare’ at this stage. I agreed to leave things for a year and Sally said she would write to Jack’s father again at that time.
There was someone else with whom I wanted to get back in touch: Claire, my bestest childhood friend. Before my first marriage ended and Jack was adopted, Claire and I lost touch because her husband was an officer in the Navy and they got posted elsewhere. I suppose life got in the way. Up until I was forty, my head was messed up with the tablets and my life lurched from one disaster to another. But now I was OK and life was good, my thoughts returned to the happy times of my childhood. I rang everyone in the phone book with Claire’s surname and at last I tracked down her aunt. She gave me Claire’s phone number and I rang her. At first I thought she sounded a bit distant, but within a few minutes we were giggling about our past. She told me that she had tried to find me years before when she was having her twenty-fifth wedding celebrations and she had asked my mother for my phone number, but was told that no one knew my whereabouts. Mum had lied, in other words. But that didn’t matter any more. We were talking now, so all that was history.