Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [76]
Not once did I think, He needs to look after me now, I’m carrying his child. The only thoughts passing through my head were things like He can’t help it. It’s the pressure of his illness. The drugs are making him talk like that. It’s the stress of going under the laser. I even found myself thinking, Is this what Scottish men are like? Is it just their way of talking? You name it, I made an excuse for it.
I could have done with some support early on because those first days of pregnancy were tough. I suffered from chronic morning sickness and struggled to get around for a while. This is the time I should have been resting, being waited on by my partner. Peter, unfortunately, hadn’t read the script. This was the period when he suddenly decided he needed me to work in the bar and clean the building. It was almost as if he didn’t want me clogging up the flat while he was in there during the day.
Then, out of the blue, I was told I’d spent my last night in the flat. The owners announced they wanted to convert Peter’s pad into a paid residence, so he was being relocated to a flat in a little cottage around the back of the building. I thought it sounded nice, although it was weird that I only got a day’s notice. ‘Surely someone would have told you earlier?’ He denied it. What else could I do but get on with packing – alone? Two months pregnant and there I was stuffing crates and shifting boxes around the flat. Criminal, really.
Always willing to look on the bright side, I decided that our new home was just what we needed. We could draw a line under our recent trials and tribulations. This was a fresh beginning. Another fresh beginning.
If anything, though, Peter’s behaviour in the cottage was even worse than before. His friend John was a regular visitor, especially on a weekend, when he’d come over for a few beers. Shortly after we’d moved home, John was there and Peter had finished his beer. He could have asked me for another one, he could even have got up and fetched a tin himself, to save my poor legs. But he didn’t. His response to discovering a depleted glass was ‘Empty again? Where’s that fucking useless bitch?’
I was about ten feet away. I heard every word. The sudden viciousness of it was like a kick in the abdomen, an explosion of pure hatred. The way he looked at me sent a shiver down my spine. Worst of all, he didn’t care that I’d heard.
Again, I put it down to fear of losing his testicle, but it did hurt. I would have done anything for that man and he was beginning to treat me like dirt. It was horrible, but, I decided, there was only one way to fix things. I have to try harder to make him love me.
I’d always got on well with John, but I could barely look him in the eye after that.
While I seemed to be getting more attention from Peter’s harsh tongue, attention of a more intimate nature had pretty much dried up. I didn’t know if that had something to do with the new flat or whether it was because of my growing bump, but my sex life was non-existent from the moment I first stepped into that cottage. I tried to seduce, I flirted and I even begged, but Peter wouldn’t touch me. He made it clear that it wasn’t right to be having sex while carrying a baby. I knew that wasn’t true, but he succeeded in making me feel guilty.
One way to try to please him was to be a better housewife. I was no cook – a lifetime of uncooked roasts and non-rising cakes had taught me that. But I had an enthusiasm to master it which was complemented by my desperation to do anything for my man. I’d passed my home economics O level, but what good was that in the real world? If you needed a pineapple upside-down cake or mince pies, then I was your gal. But anything practical, anything you might actually want to serve for an evening meal, like roast lamb and mashed potato, was completely beyond my ken. But I tried.
One morning I said, ‘What would you like for tea tonight?’
Without hesitation: ‘Pork chops.’
‘No problem. I’ll buy some today.’ So I did. I hopped on the Honda and was at the shops in no time. On the way back I was aware of that