The Decision: Lizzie's Story (20 page)

“… This has got nothing to do with Tamsin.” I said sourly.

“Don’t start that again.” Mike chastised.

“Start what?” I countered, “For God’s sake Mike, I’m talking about our future here – ours and Daisy’s! I’ve been waiting here, for you – and I want to know what happens next! That is not unreasonable.”

There: I said it. Yet I felt the mood turn decidedly frosty from Mike’s side of the bed, even in the dark. “I can’t talk to you when you’re being like this.” He asserted.

“Being like what?” I wasn’t about to let this go. I’d had enough of being left dangling. Now was the time to discuss this, once and for all, even if it was the middle of the night.

“You’re being childish.” Mike accused.

“What!” My voice was raised now; I’d forgotten about the rest of the house, asleep. A light on the landing came on, but I barely noticed. “You’re the one who won’t face up to his responsibilities!”

“I’m a student.” Mike said, for the hundredth time.

“There are men and women up and down the country who are parents and students,” I pointed out, “What do you think they do, put their kids in storage?”

“Shut up!” Sal yelled across the landing from her bedroom.

I ignored her. “… No. They manage because they don’t have someone as stupid as me, hanging around and waiting for you to get off your arse!” I hissed.

Suddenly Mike grabbed my arm and twisted it, pulling me towards him in the bed. I could barely see him in the dark room, but I knew his face was close against mine; I could feel his breath on my face. My heartbeat quickened a step, frightened. He said nothing; he knew he was intimidating me. Just as quickly, he let go and turned over in bed, pulling the duvet over him. “I’m going to sleep.” He declared.

That was it: case closed. I sat up in the bed, smarting every bit as much as the bruise that was raising on my arm. A part of me wanted Mike out of my parents’ house, that very moment: I never wanted to lay eyes on him again! I was sick of his laissez-faire attitude towards Daisy and I; I hated his shirking of responsibility, expecting my family to pick up the slack, yet breezing in and out of our lives at will. But the other side of me looked across at my daughter, sleeping so soundly in her crib and wondered if I had the right to deprive her of her father, just because I didn’t like or want him anymore. Was it the more responsible side of me talking, there? Or the doormat side? I really didn’t know. Besides anything, the thought of facing life alone
as a single parent terrified me, even if I knew deep down I was one already. At least Mike had stood by me, if only on a technicality.

The morning came and neither the previous night nor the idea of us all living together was mentioned again. Mum clocked the hostility between Mike and I at the breakfast table, but I dodged even her most probing questions. I knew what she thought, anyway; she reckoned I was better off without Mike and I even privately agreed with her. Even though my own father’s behaviour had been poor over the years, he had always taken responsibility for us: he’d been there at school plays, birthdays, Christmases. He’d been interested in us, had loved us and in return Mum had consented to giving us his name, rather than hers. When I had been younger I had cynically disregarded this, claiming “What’s in a name?” like my beloved Shakespeare, yet now I knew somehow it was important. Mike might have been a commitment-phobe like my Dad, but he was worse: Mike might have wanted Daisy and I, but only ever on his own terms and as long as he wasn’t paying. He could live the life he wanted, but it was my family who were picking up the tab, financially, emotionally and physically.

Enough was enough.

I’d read enough women’s magazines and seen enough daytime television chat shows. The advice ladled out by them was simple and always the same: work out what you want and tell him; don’t make him guess, because he won’t. This rang particularly true for me now: I remembered Nora, my mum’s teaching friend coming to the house during yet another bad patch between Mum and Dad when I was about fourteen. Nora and Mum had discussed Mum and Dad’s relationship in hushed tones, which I’d eavesdropped on, during which I’d overheard my Mum say, “Things are so bad… He has no idea how bad they are.” Nora had sucked her breath in her over her
teeth as if to say, “Ooooooh dear” and I’d wondered what on Earth Mum could mean. But I knew now. My Mum had tried to tell my Dad what the problem was, but he just wasn’t listening – like Mike wasn’t listening to me now. I had told him simply waiting for him was no longer working for me; that I wanted us to live together; that I wanted us to be a proper family at last. I had been ignored.

Now it was time for phase two.

I had grown up in a house where many ultimatums had been uttered over the years, most of them by my mother: clean your bedroom or you’re grounded. Eat your breakfast or you’re grounded. Stop arguing with your sisters or you’re grounded. Unlike many parents, these were not idle threats either: my mother was nothing if not consistent and groundings could be very unpleasant. Not content with merely keeping us locked up in the middle of nowhere, Mum would subject us to cleaning rituals – the dreaded bathroom being just one, especially after Amanda and all her potions had been in there – but also humungous piles of ironing and even gardening if weather allowed. As a result, we did all we could to avoid being grounded, even the twins who had once been subjected, aged just four, to scrubbing the front doorstep with two small paintbrushes. Mum hadn’t been able to think of how else to punish them for wantonly ripping up the corner of the carpet in the hall just to see if they could.

So as far as I was concerned, ultimatums were part of the female armoury in relationships. I honestly didn’t see why mine with Mike should be any different. On the surface, it seemed like a good plan: I had facilitated his laziness and irresponsibility, by always being there, no matter what he didn’t do. So I would tell Mike what Daisy and I wanted and needed – again – and then tell him, if he wouldn’t step up (again), the relationship was over. It seemed foolproof. Even if he forced me to enact my threat, he would surely soon realise a life
with
Daisy and I was far more
preferable to one without. All I would have to do is bide my time and wait for him to come crawling back: he would be a better, more responsible person and father for he would surely – finally! - take the situation seriously at last.
Wouldn’t he?

Another university holiday rolled around and Daisy and I went to stay at Francis’ with Mike, under the guise I wanted her to spend some time with her grandfather. In reality, the thought of such a minging old man even breathing his fetid odours near my daughter made me shudder a bit, not helped by the fact Francis didn’t appear to have a clue what to do with her either. I wondered how Mike had survived past babyhood. Francis kept shaking his car keys at her, apparently not having noticed Daisy was now nearly one, walking and had a vocabulary of about ten or fifteen words, including, “Mummy”, “Drink?” and perhaps most surprisingly, “Yeah man!” which Amanda had taught her and Daisy thought was one word. Good tempered as always, Daisy would look at him wide-eyed before racing off to the television and flicking through channels randomly, leaving smeared handprints across the screen, pointing to things she liked.

I was itching to deliver Mike my ultimatum, but knew I couldn’t do it as soon as I got there; I had to wait for the most opportune moment. But none seemed forthcoming, even on the third day we were there. Mike was typically distant, always texting, Facebooking or playing video games on his phone. I had grown bored and Daisy kept asking when we were going home; she missed the hustle and bustle of the house, the endless blaring noise of my sisters and my Mum’s shouting. We especially missed her cooking, too; Francis and Mike barely ate enough to keep a mouse alive between them. I found myself sneaking Daisy off to the bakery to buy pasties; hardly healthy. So on the fourth day, I called my Mum and told her we were coming home that afternoon. I’d given myself a deadline.

It was now or never.

I suggested to Mike we take Daisy to the swings at the park. Walking past the old broken-down bandstand together, I noted the autumn leaves on the ground and the chill in the air. Mike would be going back to university for his final year soon. He was planning on living with his friends Andy, Stanfield (aka the “other” Mike) and of course, the ubiquitous Tamsin, so keen to prove herself as “one of the guys”. When Mike had told me this, I had resolutely kept my mouth shut; I hadn’t formed my plan then – university accommodation is always booked so far in advance – but I knew I would be able to find a way of ensuring Tamsin and Mike did not share the same house. This would be it.

I had not envisaged delivering my ultimatum in a child’s play park as my daughter went up and down a graffittied slide, but beggars could not be choosers. Mike took it surprisingly well; there was no shouting as I feared, but neither was there any begging or pleading, which unnerved me. I had hoped just the mere act of telling him I needed more – or else! – would be enough for him to plunge in with ways we could fix our relationship and make our unorthodox family work. Of course, top of my list would have been ditching the shared house (or more crucially, Tamsin) and finding a flat together where he went to university. In planning for this moment, I had already asked for nursery brochures and checked out the local area on various maps and streetviews; I’d already moved there and set up home with Mike, in my head.

But instead I found myself waiting again.

A few short weeks later Mike was back at university and ensconced in his house share. Though I was wild with jealousy inside, I told myself it was just a minor setback; Mike would soon realise what he was missing out on, if not with me, then his own daughter. And Mike certainly seemed to want to continue his link with us.
Though we were no longer officially “together”, Mike still rang and still wanted to see Daisy when he came back for weekends. I would go and see him at Francis’ and occasionally stay over. Though I always had the spare room, with Daisy in the fold up travel cot, Mike would always sneak in to my bed during the night and I would let him. I felt sure things were going the way they were supposed to. It was just taking longer than I expected.

Two or three months into this relationship that was apparently
not
a relationship, Mike dropped his bombshell. He and I were in bed together at Francis’ and he got a call on his mobile. As soon as he saw the name on the LCD, his face dropped and he got out of bed, still naked, going through to the bathroom and talking in a low voice. I knew immediately something was up and quizzed him mercilessly when he came back to pull his clothes back on. Though he attempted to avoid my questions at first, finally he snapped and came out with it.

He was seeing Tamsin.

Apparently they’d got together the first night they’d moved into the house share, just as I’d always feared. He hadn’t meant for it to happen, but she was his best friend. Things were just so easy with her, in a way they never had been with me. I couldn’t believe it. I had delivered him, gift wrapped to this girl! I asked him why he had continued this charade with me, why he’d cheated on Tamsin? He merely shrugged: apparently I was “sexier” than Tamsin and he wanted to see Daisy. I was disgusted, both with him and myself. Him, because he was so ready to denigrate Tamsin’s attractiveness – my conscience ignored the fact I already had – and myself, because I’d fallen into this trap so readily and so easily. I should have made Mike work his way back to us, not let him go and then come back on a whim! I had actually
somehow given him even more of what he wanted, because now he had two girlfriends on the go!

I returned home with Daisy, resolving never to speak to Mike again. Mum and Dad could see I was upset, but everyone trod eggshells around me, sure I would open up when I was ready. Yet I didn’t trust myself to speak, for fear of it all coming flooding out. I knew I deserved better, but then so did Tamsin. I became obsessed with the thought of her, calling up her Facebook page and staring at pictures of her; Mike was in some of them. At first, I felt sure I should tell her, “save” her from Mike; once a cheat, always a cheat. Then resentment flooded my good sense: this girl knew Mike and I had a baby together. As his supposed “best friend”, she presumably knew we’d had problems with our relationship. Yet here she was, first chance she got, getting in the way of us making it work and spoiling my plan! What kind of girl was she? Clearly not a nice one.

So I formed a new plan. I would play the Mistress if that’s what it took. Tamsin had to get boring for him, eventually. As Mike himself had said already, I was better looking than her, more “sexy” and besides anything, I had the trump card: Daisy. I could wait this out. I felt I had to: I had invested too much in this situation to see it fall apart at the final hurdle. Mike only had six or seven months of university left; he and Tamsin were bound to go their separate ways afterwards. It didn’t matter I didn’t really like Mike. He was Daisy’s father. I had to do the right thing by my daughter and wait just that little bit longer and suffer this humiliation – for Daisy. I would be the good mother; I ignored the fact my own twisted logic made me not a “nice girl” (whatever that was), either.

So our screwed-up relationship trawled onwards: Mike would come and visit and I would accommodate him. Mum and Dad were oblivious at first, thinking the
break in Mike’s visits when he went back for the third year at uni were just teething troubles. Then Mum found out when she saw Tamsin and Mike kissing in town during the Easter holidays. She came to me, sombre-faced, having agonised over whether she should tell me, making me feel all the worse for having to confess it was actually me who was the “other woman”, not Tamsin. Mum said very little but I could tell from her pinched-faced expression she didn’t approve. She told me Mike had it all his own way too long and it was time for me to stand up for myself, to show Daisy what her mother was made of. I threw back a few barbed comments about her and Dad but to her credit Mum rose above them and left me to puzzle it out, on my own.