Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [98]
Degrading though it was, being in solitary confinement was better than having Peter there with me. Now he no longer bothered trying to soften his language and attitude. Every other word was ‘fuck’ and he didn’t have to be in a bad mood for me to get both barrels. Sometimes I swear he would attack me for fun. After a while, I managed to tune it out. But then he started doing it in front of Daniel.
‘Where’s my tea, bitch?’
‘Clean this fucking pigsty, you lazy shit.’
‘What the fuck’s this shit on my plate?’
It was as vicious as it was relentless and I was suddenly aware of every evil syllable. I’d always sworn to prevent my son from seeing his mother hurt, as I had witnessed my own mother being abused. And I’d failed.
Daniel saw me thrown to the floor if Peter’s dinner was late, smacked across the mouth if I dared to speak out of turn and crushed under his weight against the wall if there was a single toy out of place. I hated Daniel seeing it, so I’d fight, desperate to make it look like a game. But that wasn’t good enough. Peter wanted to see me in pain; that was the point of it. The violence wasn’t about hurting me – like so many of his actions, it was about controlling me. The longer I kept smiling for my son’s sake, the harder he pulled my hair and twisted my arm and held my throat. Till, in the end, I had to give in and cry and beg him to stop. That was all he wanted. He needed me to be dependent on him. He couldn’t do it financially and he knew that. So the only means left to him were brute force and threats.
Once I’d had the idea that the move to Scotland had been devised to separate me from anyone who could help, it just wouldn’t leave my mind. Slowly, as I was beaten and cowed into submission every day, it grew stronger. Then I thought, If he’s capable of sacrificing my successful business to feed his paranoia, what else has he done?
I flicked back over the events of our life together. The wedding – was that just another way to control me? Did he believe all that marriage vow crap about ‘honour and obey’? Did he think that if I became Mrs Tobin I would legally have to bow down to him?
Before I could find an answer, another thought blew that one clean out of my mind. What about Daniel?
That whole not being able to have children story must have been a lie. The doctor had assured me that Peter understood the repercussions of his op and I’d chosen to believe Peter instead. The more I dwelt on it, the more I felt my face begin to burn with shame.
I’m just a puppet to him.
But why had he lied? He hated having a baby in the house and refused to lift a finger to look after him. Why would he have been so desperate to have a child with me? It didn’t make sense. He couldn’t have gone to all that trouble just so I would be more reliant on him, could he? I knew, of course, that he could. He was capable of things I’d never imagined in my worst nightmares. But there was another reason.
Peter had wanted Daniel to use against me, just as Mark and Brian and those scumbags had used me against my own mother. Peter recognized that I had an independent streak the day we met. That had scared him and he’d sought to tame me. Aggression and bullying at the flat and cottage hadn’t worked. I’d always bounced back, dusted myself down and been ready for the next battle. Peter knew it would take a special weapon to control me – and in Daniel he’d been handed it.
The more I raked over the past with these fresh eyes, the more I cried. I wouldn’t have given up Daniel for the world, but I was as guilty as Peter for bringing him into this violent and loveless marriage. If you marry without love, you deserve what you get. I’d been naïve and flattered by Peter’s attentions and what he could offer me. Everything that had gone wrong, I’d found an excuse