Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [129]
I may have had help purchasing it, but not from a man – and that’s how it stayed. After Steve 2, I wasn’t in another relationship for several years and I did most of the house renovations myself. With the help of a trusty Collins DIY manual, I single-handedly built a conservatory along the whole width of the back of the bungalow. When that was finished, I honestly don’t think I’d ever been prouder of myself. As I poured a glass of fizz to celebrate, I couldn’t help thinking of all the potential in me that had been wasted during those years of being subjugated by Peter.
Speaking of him, with everything else ticking along so comfortably, it suddenly occurred to me that I should take care of some unfinished business.
It was 1999 and Peter had been inside for five years. A lot of people don’t bother with divorce because it means you have to see your estranged partner again. I didn’t have to worry about that. He was locked up. We would only be communicating through solicitors and I was confident it would be pretty straight forward. I was wrong.
‘You realize, of course, that your husband is entitled to fifty per cent of your plastic fabrication business and house equity, don’t you?’ my solicitor said, to which I replied, ‘You must be bloody joking!’
I was employing twenty staff and raking in decent money and I owned my own home. Why should that scumbag, who’d contributed nothing to my success, get a penny? The lunacy of the law got worse though.
As far as I was concerned, I already had sole custody of Daniel. For the purposes of a divorce, however, I needed to clarify why this should continue to be the case. I was laughing as I answered the question.
‘How about because he’s in prison and I’m not!’
It was utterly demeaning, but I had to write out in black and white exactly why I felt I should have sole custody of Daniel. So I mentioned the home, the private education, the swimming lessons twice a week, the martial arts, everything. Peter had given the boy nothing but nightmares. I’d even had to pay him, for God’s sake, to look after his own son.
Someone must have been smiling on me, though, because my solicitor advised me to write to Peter asking to be let off his legal claims to my wealth and he agreed. I didn’t do it personally, although Peter probably didn’t know that. I was grateful though. It was the first selfless thing he’d ever done and to this day I don’t know why he did it. He couldn’t have been harbouring delusions of winning me back. Could he?
Divorce was something worth celebrating and that should have been yet another line in the sand. Somehow, though, I knew it wouldn’t be the final cut-off between Peter and me. I just didn’t expect him back in my life so soon.
I sold Hazlewood Avenue for another tidy profit, then bought a new place in St Ronan’s Road, Southsea. While I was living there, I met the man whom I would be with for the next ten years. His name was Tim and he was lovely. He’d closed his engineering business a year before and was dabbling with the idea of property developing with his spare cash. We decided to move in together, so I sold Southsea, again for a healthy markup, and we jointly bought another place in the area for £250,000 – which we did up and sold a year later for £525,000. The day that sale went through I looked at Tim and said, ‘I’m in the wrong business.’ I followed Tim’s lead and wrapped up my own business. Now I was a property developer too.
Suddenly we were enjoying lie-ins, cooked breakfasts and drawn-out lunches together and still finding time to do a few hours’ lucrative work each day. It was the perfect career for both of us and life was sweet. And then, in 2001, I received a call from a lady called Susan