Wronged Sons, The (12 page)

“In all honesty, I didn’t expect you to be so persistent. I hoped you’d give up after a few weeks.”

“But that’s what love is, Simon. It’s never giving up on the person you’ve given your heart to; it’s having faith that no matter how tough things get, that person will always be looking for you.”

She shook her head at her own stupidity in dedicating so much time trying to find a man who’d long left the country. They stared at each other until she stopped waiting for him to defend himself. Her victory felt hollow.

He wasn’t ready to explain in full why he, her husband, the stranger, had suddenly elbowed his way back into her life. It wasn’t a revelation he could suddenly blurt out or casually slip into the conversation. He had to make clear to her first why he had made his choices before explaining the role she’d played in pushing him away.

Only then, when she realised her culpability, could he drop the bombshell. Otherwise all she would hear when it detonated was the deafening sound of the truth ricocheting around the room. She would not pause to reflect and their reconciliation would be over as quickly as it began.

But his refusal to answer even her most basic of questions frustrated her. She deserved to know the truth – all of the truth. But against her better judgment, she also had a growing curiosity as to just how he’d filled his ocean of time.

She hoped he’d lived a miserable, depressing existence filled with regret, longing and woe. But none of that was evident in the brown, healthy looking man who’d invaded her home. And all she’d heard so far were his thinly disguised boasts of a much better life abroad and without her.

He rose to his feet and made his way over to the patio doors to look over the garden he’d once toiled to shape. The corners of his mouth rose when he spotted the patio where they’d spent many long evenings planning their futures. He hadn’t thought about those nights in years and acknowledged there had been good times after all.

She’d since had a brick barbecue built and a wooden pagoda erected where bright green grape vines hung. He knew on instinct they’d never make a decent wine. A child’s yellow plastic bike was propped up against a crab apple tree he’d planted in the corner by the firs. He wondered where and who its owner was.

“I am glad you kept our house,” he said softly.

“My house,” she corrected quickly. “It’s my house. And I nearly lost it because of you.”

CHAPTER SIX

Northampton, Twenty-Five Years Earlier

September 9, 11pm

“You bloody idiot,” I muttered.

My heart sank when I read the letter. Eight weeks was all we had left in our home before the bank repossessed it. I’d ignored the stack of brown envelopes addressed to you and crammed them into the kitchen drawer, out of sight and out of mind. And I hadn’t given any thought to checking the balance in our account.

Money wasn’t something I’d ever needed to take responsibility for. I was more than happy to let you deal with our finances. I presumed you’d make sure we were okay and as long as we kept a roof over our heads that was all that mattered. Silly old me.

I only knew there was a problem when the first cheque bounced. It rebounded off the doormat and back into my hand a few days after I’d given it to a petrol pump cashier. Two more soon tumbled through the letterbox from British Telecom and an off-licence in town.

But it wasn’t until my debit card was declined at Sainsbury’s that I knew I had to pull my red face out of the sand to see just how much trouble I was in. Our fridge was almost bare and the only food we had was waiting to be paid for in an abandoned trolley by a checkout.

I plucked up the courage to look at our bank statement and, through squinted eyes, regretted it straight away. I was up to my neck in our overdraft. Your wages had always covered the utilities but there was never much left to siphon off into a rainy day account.

You and Steven had agreed that until the business reached a certain profit, you’d only pay yourselves a basic sum. But with half the work being done, Steven had barely enough to cover his own expenses let alone mine. There was little in the way of rainy day money and certainly not enough to survive a drought. And after three months of natural erosion, the reservoir was dry.

That awful day in January had almost cost me my sanity. It had also wiped out our savings, but neither of us would have had it any other way. Despite the turmoil it had seen, our house was as much a part of the family as the people who lived under its roof. But unless my fairy godmother waved her magic wand, we were going to lose it.

I wasn’t stupid. I loved a little gossip as much as the next person. So I knew many people in the village were gossiping about me. I’d see them looking away when they spotted me in the supermarket, unsure of what to say. I heard whispers at the school gates from the other mums. I had my suspicions they thought you’d walked out on me only because I’d have probably thought the same thing if I was them.

So I played on my rumoured ‘abandoned wife’ status to my advantage and pleaded ignorance to our bank manager. I even felt a twinge of guilt when I turned on the waterworks with surprising ease to prove how hard I was finding it to cope. But it worked.

He offered me a two-month stay of execution to climb out of arrears before his hands became tied and we’d lose our home. I could have kissed him, but instead I skulked back home, ashamed of how I’d let things slide.

I decamped into the dining room and faced the reality of my money woes on a table littered with old statements and red letters. A bottle of wine gave me support when I watched figures on reams of pages twirl around like whirling dervishes, daring me to take a closer look at the mischief they’d created while I was distracted. Eventually, I calculated my outgoings were triple my incomings, but no matter where I thought I could make some savings, the debts were still going to mount up.

The fact you had, as far as the authorities was aware, not actually died but gone AWOL made it much harder to claim welfare state support. I’d slipped into a grey area that wasn’t recognised by black and white regulations. I wouldn’t receive a widow’s allowance as there was no proof you were dead and I’d not been ‘actively seeking work’ so I couldn’t claim unemployment benefits. I was allowed family support but that fortnightly payment didn’t stretch far. I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Frustrated, I poured myself another drink while my eyes filled up faster than the glass. I was both angry with you for leaving me like this and at myself for being in denial. Something had to change. It was time to remove myself from my pity party and start being the breadwinner.

I began by selling your car then reluctantly pawning my jewellery, including my gorgeous wedding and engagement rings. Never in all our years together had I taken either of them off. Not when we spent all our waking hours glossing doors and staining floorboards or lifting concrete slabs. If I scuffed them, it didn’t matter – they’d be reminders of what we’d built together.

Even when four pregnancies made my fingers swell to the size of tiny watermelons, they remained where I could see them at all times. Your disappearance had made them the saddest objects I owned, but the only thing stopping another round of tears was the knowledge that when we found you, I’d be able to buy them back.

A house clearance firm I found in the Yellow Pages made up the rest of the mortgage shortfall. I’d begged them to come late in the evening, as I was too embarrassed for the neighbours to see strange men taking our worldly goods away in the back of a lorry.

I sold the Welsh dresser from the kitchen; a sofa and television we barely used from the snug; your writing bureau; two book shelves; three wardrobes; a chest of drawers; dressing table; sideboard; dishwasher; lamps and crockery we’d been given as wedding presents. And while it killed me to do it, I even sold the children’s bikes. By the time the removal men left an hour later, I still had a home but barely anything left to fill it with.

I sat broken-hearted, gazing at the empty floors and empty walls in our empty shell. And as I nursed my wine and glanced at my empty finger, I felt like a hopeless failure as a wife and as a mum. It seemed like it might be harder than I thought to leave my pity party early.

October 2, 2.10pm

Our children gave me an unselfish, beautiful, organic love that grew as they grew. But the love you gave me was something altogether different. It made me feel desired, appreciated, respected and needed. And I missed that; I missed it so much. You took with you something I didn’t believe I could hurt so badly for.

But as each week passed, I gradually figured out I shouldn’t need another person to validate my life, no matter how much I loved or longed for it. It was something I could do myself and it began in our local supermarket, of all places.

I knew checkout assistant and shelf-stacker wasn’t the greatest job in the world when I saw it advertised in the window. But this beggar couldn’t afford to be a chooser so I gagged my inner snob and applied for it.

I stared into the staff changing room mirror that first morning and barely recognised myself. I was a thirty three-year-old bag of nerves dressed in ill-fitting, brown crimplene uniform and wearing a ‘trainee’ badge.

I wondered if I had an unhealthy obsession with mirrors. I’d often make a ridiculous weekly pilgrimage to the one in our bathroom for some brutal home truths. Inch by inch, I’d pull on loose skin from the stone I’d lost since you’d gone, prod rogue folds and carefully examine my body and face for any obvious signs of collapse. I’d sigh as I charted the progression of an army of silver silkworms weaving their way across my crown. I could have lost a finger in the crevices around my eyes that’d once been subtle laughter lines. Ironically they’d only grown when the laughter died.

Neither you, nor youth, were on my side any longer. But while I was still more Jane Fonda than Henry Fonda, the gap between the two was growing closer. But whatever the direction my new life was going to take, I was going to give it my all.

Most of the checkout girls seemed decades younger than me. In reality, there were only a few years between us. But a missing husband and raising a family on your own ages you like little else.

Working kept me busy and stopped me from feeling sorry for myself. The mums swapped parenting stories and gave each other knowing smiles when the student part-timers swapped drunken tales and complained of exam stress like they were pioneers in the field of drinking and homework. But secretly I envied them and tried to remember what it felt like to have so few worries or battle scars.

Sometimes I’d listen to the housewives moan about their lazy, selfish husbands, and I’d want to shout ‘At least you still have yours!’ But I’d smile and nod along with the rest of the sisterhood instead.

Your disappearance still had a curiosity factor attached to it, like the village had its own Bermuda Triangle. It was usually the older customers who came in for their weekly shop who seemed eager to share their opinions, like only elderly people can.

“Do you think he’s dead?” or “Did he have a bit on the side?” and “It’ll be hard to find another man willing to take on a girl with three little ‘uns, won’t it?” were the most frequently asked questions. But my skin grew thicker by the day and I learned to let insensitive comments fly over my head.

It was my supervisor Selena who I had the most in common with, despite our obvious differences. She was a well-spoken, educated, bleached-blond slip of a girl who didn’t really belong there. At 19, she was the only young single parent in the shop, and proud of it. The father of Daniel, her eighteen-month old son, abandoned her as soon as she told him she was in the family way. But it hadn’t put her off going it alone.

She turned down a place at Cambridge University to study economics and worked like a trouper to feed and clothe her boy, something I related to. So I spent more time with her than the others. And I didn’t care if it was favouritism or because she thought there was more to me than check-out number seven’s chief resident, but she spoke to our deputy manager who soon promoted me to organising float changes and working out staff rotas.

More money and longer hours meant I had to rearrange our family life. Annie and Caroline took it turns to babysit for Emily during the day, and picked up the boys from school in the afternoon. And when I finished work, I’d take over and finish the nightly routine, until they were bathed and bedded.

And then, when the house fell silent, I’d open a bottle of red and begin my second and third jobs.

October 18, Midday

Summer had given way to winter before I realised autumn had passed me by. And with each crisp, frosty morning, you dominated my thoughts that little bit less.

I began an ironing service for my busy neighbours who didn’t have the time to work, look after a family and make sure their clothes weren’t creased. I charged by the basket load and spent a good couple of hours a night surrounded by other people’s shirts and blouses on hangers around the kitchen.

I made savings where I could like own-brand supermarket food; buying the kids’ birthday presents from charity shops; cutting my own hair and walking or catching the bus. I’d fastened my financial belt so tightly that it pinched like a corset. School uniforms were a necessity but bloody pricey for a one-parent family, especially when they grew out of them so quickly. I decided it would be much cheaper if I made them myself.

But the idea of picking up a needle and thread again scared me to death. For much of our married life, I’d earned a little extra money doing alterations to clothes for our friends. A turned-up hem here or a zip replacement there progressed into making clothes for the kids to play in, a few skirts for myself and then bridesmaids’ dresses for that awful, awful day when Sharon got married.

I blamed myself and my dressmaking skills for what happened and no matter how many times you’d tried to persuade me it was an accident and that I wasn’t to blame, you’d never convinced me. But making clothes was the only practical skill I had, and I needed to put food on our table. My supermarket wage was enough to cover the bills and the mortgage, but left very little else.