Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [106]
In an ideal world, I would not have let Peter Tobin within a hundred miles of me or my son. But that wasn’t fair on Daniel.
I don’t think anyone with a normal background could ever appreciate just how much value I placed on giving my son two parents. Unless you’ve known the aching chasm of loss in your life, unless you have a gaping hole in your heart where your mother or father should have been, you’ll never appreciate the lengths I was prepared to go to to keep both Daniel’s parents in his life as much as possible. It was like an obsession for me. I was possessed with the promise I had made Daniel to give him the two parents I had been denied. In simple terms, I genuinely believed that any father was better than no father.
For a while, I honestly thought it could work. The second Peter stepped through the door, he hoisted Daniel up and played with him more lovingly than I’d ever seen in the past. That counted for a lot with me, so by the time he turned his charm in my direction, I had warmed slightly. When Peter suggested taking our son to the beach, I thought, Why not? You have no hold over me anymore and Daniel will like it.
So that became our life for a while. Every couple of weeks Peter would drive down from Bathgate and we’d have, I have to say, a really nice family time in a park or on the beach. We even took the hovercraft over to the Isle of Wight. We’d never enjoyed a single family day like this before I’d left. Yet here he was, riding on mini steam trains with his son, while I sat on a bench and waved. It was sad. It was like the night Peter had charmed my father and his partner. He obviously could turn it on at will, but just chose not to.
I was happy to see Daniel enjoying himself. I even smiled to see Peter having fun with his son. But Peter, as ever, had another agenda, which soon became clear.
‘Come back to me, Cathy,’ he said one day as we strolled along the beach. ‘Come back to Bathgate and we’ll give it another go. We owe it to Daniel.’
That line didn’t wash with me anymore.
‘No, I owe it to Daniel to give him two parents and that’s what I’m doing now. He doesn’t need us back together.’
‘But I do!’ Peter exclaimed. ‘I need you, Cathy. I want you. I love you.’
Once upon a time, those last three magic words would have been enough to cast the spell that saw me packing. Not anymore. I was immune to Peter’s powers. He had nothing I wanted.
‘You weren’t very nice to me before,’ I explained. I didn’t want to pick at old wounds, but, on the other hand, he needed to know where I stood.
‘It’s my depression,’ he said. ‘You know how I suffer.’
I had to laugh. ‘I know how you like to say you suffer. I know you like the tablets.’
‘Cathy, I’ve changed. You’ve got to believe me. Come on, come back with me. Give me one more chance.’
How many times had he said those words to me? And how many times had I fallen for it? But not anymore.
‘No, Peter. My life is down here now.’
When straightforward wooing didn’t make an impression, Peter went to phase two of his plan. I was surprised to step out of my flat one day to find Peter unloading some of my belongings from Scotland from his van – including my motorbike. It was a genuinely thoughtful thing to do.
Of course, then he went and ruined it. In Peter’s mind, that should have been enough for me to be swept off my feet and say, ‘I’ve been stupid. Please take me back.’ When I didn’t, he asked again for the hundredth time. For the hundredth time, I said no. He was asking so regularly that I didn’t even feel mean anymore. I just couldn’t take it seriously and I think that night he realized it. On his way out of my building, he stopped to use the communal toilet. A few minutes later I heard a commotion in the hallway. There was screaming coming from the bathroom.