Faith (30 page)

Greg put the bag into the boot of his car, then opened the back door and taking Barney from the woman’s arms, placed him on the back seat and shut the door. Then he turned to the woman and kissed her lingeringly.

Laura started up her car and drove off. She wasn’t going to tail him home – she wanted to be there first. She knew she was driving like a maniac, but she didn’t care. It didn’t matter to her so much that Greg had a mistress, but the way he’d taken her son to stay in her house and let her wash, change and feed him was far too much for her to take.

She had been home some fifteen minutes before Greg arrived, and during the wait she’d tried to make herself calm down, but the moment she heard his car, she rushed outside and wrenched open the back door to reach Barney even before Greg had finished parking it.

‘Hold on, you’ve got all evening,’ she dimly heard Greg say. But she grabbed Barney anyway and holding him tightly ran back inside with him.

‘Mumma,’ he said wonderingly, getting a handful of her hair in his little fist. ‘Mumma.’

He was dressed in dark blue wool dungarees and a red and navy striped jumper, both garments she didn’t recognize. His dark hair had been trimmed, making him look suddenly boyish rather than a baby. She could smell the woman’s perfume on him, something vaguely familiar. She felt murderous that this new woman had dared to put her taste and smell on her son.

She hugged and kissed him but he wriggled to be free of her tight embrace. ‘Get down now,’ he said.

When she put him down he toddled off into the sitting room, making straight for a box of toys that was kept in there. He looked taller and chunkier than before she went away, and when he turned and smiled at her, she began to cry.

Greg’s voice behind her startled her. ‘He looks well, doesn’t he? He’s got a lot of new words too. He said chocolate on the way home, he used to only call it choc choc.’

‘Does he say I want my mummy, not daddy’s tart?’ Laura sobbed. ‘Did he ask why he was at Ealing instead of his granny’s?’

Greg’s face blanched. ‘What are you talking about?’ he said. ‘Christ almighty, Laura, you haven’t been home two minutes and already you’re ranting.’

Greg was a past master at turning things to look as though she was the one at fault, and he was doing it again.

‘I’m not ranting, you bastard,’ she said, wiping her wet eyes on her sleeve and trying to keep her voice down because she didn’t want Barney to be frightened. ‘Don’t even try to lie and say that woman was just a childminder, or give any other excuse. I know! Barney hasn’t been anywhere near your mother’s and I followed you today to see where he’d been while I’d been away. Explain that if you can.’

His face closed up. She could almost see the cogs in his brain whirling round trying to come up with a plausible tale.

‘I’m not going to talk about anything while Barney is around,’ he said airily. ‘He needs his tea, a bath and bed. Until then, will you kindly keep your trap shut.’

He wheeled round and left the house, leaving Laura shaking with rage. She knew he would go to a pub where over a drink he’d soon concoct some kind of story, and whatever she did or said he would turn it around to make himself look like a victim.

It cut her to the quick when Barney said ‘I want Jan Jan,’ while in the bath and it took a monumental effort to stop herself crying.

‘Jan Jan’s gone now,’ she said, and tickled him to make him laugh, but that didn’t stop her feeling as if someone had clamped a steel band around her heart.

Greg didn’t come home that night. She waited and waited, but by twelve-thirty she knew he wouldn’t come. She guessed he’d gone back to the woman and that the pair of them were discussing what to do next.

All the next day Laura went through the motions of going to the shops for food, taking Barney to the swings, and all the usual daily routine of being a wife and mother. But she knew with utter certainty that Greg wanted her out of his life.

He had never been a devoted father, she doubted he really wanted Barney in the new life he’d got planned with this other woman, but once again his actions would be decided by how they affected his image.

Straightforward desertion of his wife and child would not be an option to him; he would have to make himself look like the victim. No doubt he’d already told his parents and friends that she was unstable, a user of drugs and an unfit mother. Maybe he’d even said she’d gone off abroad with another man. Everyone would admire him if he took Barney and had to struggle to bring up his son alone.

Laura couldn’t understand why the other woman would want to be saddled with someone else’s child. But it was possible she couldn’t have any of her own, or that Greg had made her believe he and Barney were a package deal.

One thing Laura realized immediately was that she couldn’t just rush off somewhere now with Barney. She had very little money of her own, nowhere to take him to either. And she would need to find somewhere to live where Greg would never find them, for she knew he’d come after her just to spite her.

That meant she would have to play for time, keep on an even keel and even seem to be going along with whatever Greg came up with, while she made her own plans.

Greg came home that evening after she’d put Barney to bed. His face was stiff and cold, and Laura took some delight in behaving as if nothing had happened. He looked shocked to see the table in the dining room laid for dinner. She felt certain he’d expected her to launch into a shouting match, which would enable him to turn round and walk right out again.

‘I suppose you want a divorce,’ she said as she dished up the coq au vin. ‘I don’t like the idea, I thought we had married for life, but if that’s what you want just let’s make it as amicable as possible.’

As she expected, he tried to provoke her into a row, turning everything around to make out it was her fault, claiming she had always been ‘difficult’, that she wasn’t cut out to be the wife of a senior executive, or a mother. He brought up her refusal to live in the country, her drug-taking, and accused her of only marrying him for his money and position anyway.

She didn’t rise to his bait, just nodded as if she agreed with all his complaints. ‘So let’s cut to the chase,’ she said. ‘What are you intending to do?’

He said he didn’t know. She said that they should just carry on for the time being until he did.

The winter passed, spring arrived and Laura continued to try to hold her tongue as the pressure mounted between them. Greg came and went as he pleased. He gave no explanations as to what he was doing, or what he wanted, and there was no attempt at friendliness. When he spoke he was curt and dismissive; he threw his dirty clothes down on the floor, he’d demand a meal late at night, then push it away after one mouthful claiming it was disgusting.

Outside the house in nearby Kings Road Laura saw women of her own age shopping in the boutiques, flirting, laughing and having fun, while she at only twenty-seven had no one and nothing in her life other than Barney.

Jackie had sold the first house she had bought to do up and sell on, and made a vast profit, immediately ploughing it into other properties. She could talk of nothing but building and design, and how happy she was with Roger. Meggie and Ivy had put their place on the market too after hearing of Jackie’s success and they were preoccupied with finding another one. Laura didn’t feel able to tell them how bad things were for her, or how scared she was that Greg might eventually do something terrible to her. So when she saw them she pretended everything was fine.

Belle often popped round to see Laura. She had left her parents’ home in Muswell Hill and moved into a shared flat in the Fulham Road while she was attending a drama school. Her excitement and wonder at being in central London, the clubs, shops and her many boyfriends, made Laura feel as if she was being rubbed with sandpaper, and she wondered how much longer she could put up with Greg without cracking up.

But she couldn’t leave, not till she had more money, and it was becoming increasingly difficult managing to squeeze anything extra out of the housekeeping money Greg gave her each week. If she tried to economize by buying mince, he would demand steak; if she said Barney needed new shoes he would check his feet and say his current shoes still fitted. It was as if he knew what she was planning.

By the end of April he was hitting her. The first time it was just a slap when she forgot to collect his favourite shoes from the cobbler’s. He raged at her and said it was her job to take care of such things, and hit her.

That time he apologized the following day, and even cuddled her and promised it would never happen again. But it did; just a week later he punched her in the stomach, and she’d barely recovered from that when he laid into her one night for spilling some fat on the kitchen floor which he’d slipped on when he came home. He was like a man possessed, dragging her up by the hair as she lay in bed, and punching her stomach as though it was a medicine ball.

From then on it was a round of violence. She didn’t have to do or say anything to set him off, he would attack her for any reason, and always he yelled at her to get out of the house and never come back. But she wasn’t going to go without Barney because she knew that was what he hoped for.

Yet the more he hit her, the more verbal abuse he subjected her to, the more worthless she felt. She sometimes felt that Greg was right, that she was scum, and that maybe she had no right to Barney.

It was a Friday night in early June when she finally saw that he would kill her eventually if she didn’t get out.

He came home around eight stinking of drink, and asked where she’d moved his golf clubs to. The last time he played golf he’d left his bag in the kitchen, and Barney had pulled out one of the irons and smashed a vase with it. Laura had then put them for safety in the hall cupboard where they kept the coats. She was washing up and so she told Greg where he could find them. The next minute he’d got her by the hair, dragging her out of the kitchen.

‘You bloody well get them,’ he roared at her. ‘You lazy fucking whore.’

She knew he would hit her even if she kept quiet, and the injustice and cruelty of it made her snap. ‘You hit me again and I’ll go down to your factory and tell them that you’re a wife beater,’ she yelled back at him.

For a second she thought that had stopped him in his tracks for he opened the hall cupboard door and pulled out his golf club bag. But suddenly he whirled round on her, caught her by the shoulder, and with his other hand pulled out a club and hit her with it.

It landed on her shoulder and she managed to get away from him, running out to the kitchen. But he came after her and slashed at her legs, making her fall to the floor.

He had her at his mercy then and he hit her over and over again, yelling out obscenities that were so vile it was as though he was possessed by an evil spirit. She screamed, begged him to stop and think of Barney upstairs, but it made no difference.

The pain was incredible. Each stroke felt like a burn, and she tried to curl herself up to protect herself, but she thought the blows raining down on her back would kill her.

Then as suddenly as he’d started, he stopped, dropping the club on the floor beside her. ‘You’ve done this to me,’ he spat at her. ‘You’ve turned me into something evil, like you.’

He left then, rushing out of the house, not even stopping to pick up his golf bag. She heard his car start up and roar off down the road.

She was beyond tears, in shock with both the pain of the beating and the idea that he could hate her that much. But she knew that somehow she had to get out with Barney that night. Once he had gathered his wits he’d be back for his son.

There was no point in calling the police. They would call it ‘a domestic’, and say she must stay in the house with Barney and claim her rights through the courts. Greg had the money and the legal contacts. First he’d whip Barney away, then on Monday morning he’d be at his solicitor’s with some story about her endangering Barney. He’d make people believe him too, he was good at that, and she’d never get her baby back.

It took all her strength to pull herself up on the cupboard doors, and then one painful step after another until she reached the stairs.

Packing a couple of cases with her and Barney’s clothes was hard enough when every movement was like having a dagger going though her, but how she got them downstairs and out into her car, she really didn’t know. She filled another small bag with Barney’s toys, then went into Greg’s study to see if she could find any money.

The moment when she found a large brown envelope in the same place she’d found money back in February was the only time that night when she stopped hurting for a few brief seconds. She didn’t think it was the same wad of money, for it was in a different envelope, but a quick glance inside told her there was even more than in the first one.

With it safely in her handbag, she went back out on to the landing and stopped before the mirror to brace herself before lifting Barney out of his cot. Her face was thankfully unmarked, but when she pulled up her shirt she saw purple weals across her chest and stomach. She couldn’t manage to twist herself enough to check her back, and she guessed that was even worse.

Picking Barney up was the hardest thing of all. Every nerve ending in her back, arms and even her legs screamed for her to stop. He was heavy, and sound asleep a dead weight, but somehow she managed to get him into her arms and wrap his blanket around him.

It was a warm night, and still light though well after ten, so she half expected her neighbours to come out. After all, they must have heard her screaming earlier and seen her putting the cases into the space behind the Beetle’s back seat. But the only people in the road were down the far end by Kings Road.

Barney didn’t wake as she laid him down on the back seat. Wincing with pain, she eased herself into the driver’s seat, started the engine and drove off.

‘Gonnae stamp my book?’

Laura was startled out of her reverie by Frances from her own block, standing in front of the desk grinning at her.