The Little Prisoner_ A Memoir - Jane Elliott [51]
I met Steve at a party quite soon after leaving Paul and fell in love again, which was not what I had intended to do. Introducing other men into my life had done nothing but complicate things in my head and had always ended up making me miserable when I had to give them up. But something told me this one might be different. I suppose he must have started out being attracted to the extrovert girl with the loud laugh, but he didn’t seem to be put off when he found out that I was more complicated than I might at first have seemed. He wasn’t like the other men I’d known from round our way. He didn’t come from our sort of world and knew nothing of what went on there. He had a job in an office, a career plan, a suit and tie, all of which I liked even if I didn’t fully understand them.
I had mixed feelings about letting the relationship go anywhere. I was happy to have met someone like Steve, but also frightened of what would happen to his life if he became involved with us. He came from a good, steady, loving family and wouldn’t have dreamed for a second of what was going on behind the closed doors and drawn curtains in our house.
It was about three months before I plucked up the courage to let him be at the flat when my family were around. I knew Richard would dislike him immediately. He would see that he wasn’t going to be as easy to intimidate as the others. I knew he would talk about him contemptuously as ‘that white-collar wanker’ and ‘that sissy boy’.
I warned Steve that Richard would take the piss. To my amazement, he didn’t seem to be worried. ‘I’ve been called names before,’ he told me. ‘I think I can take a few more.’
‘He really isn’t a very nice person,’ I insisted.
I didn’t dare tell Steve that he had never come across anything like my family, that it might start with a bit of name-calling but if that didn’t have the desired effect it would soon escalate to violence. I just couldn’t bring myself to explain any more.
Initially, though, Richard was alright to Steve, just going through the mock strict father routine.
‘Hope your intentions towards my daughter are good.’
‘Yes, very good,’ Steve replied, innocently.
Richard then came out into the kitchen and told me what he really thought and I went back into the living room in tears, telling Steve that my dad didn’t like him. It still didn’t seem to bother him that much. It was as if he just thought I was being over-sensitive about everything.
A few weeks later when my stepdad came round to my house Steve was greeted with: ‘Oh fucking hell, not you again!’
Silly Git’s behaviour was following its predictable pattern, but Steve didn’t seem to be willing to let it get to him. He remained resolutely polite and obliging when asked to help lay patios or give the family a lift to watch the boys in a boxing match. Paul warned him not to do them too many favours or he would be sucked in, and sure enough, the first time Steve said he wasn’t able to give Richard a hand with something because he was going to the football, all pretence at being friendly ended. But still I couldn’t bring myself to explain to Steve the full extent of Silly Git’s hold over me. I did, however, tell him that Richard wasn’t my real dad, something I had told hardly anyone before.
One of the nice things about Steve is the open relationship he has with his own parents. He tells them everything. In this case, however, his openness had just the sort of effect that I had dreaded. Richard took to ringing Steve’s parents and telling them what he thought of their son and me and threatening all sorts of violence. They weren’t the sort of people to put up with that kind of rudeness and aggression without responding and in one of these conversations his mum came to my defence.
‘She’s not even your real daughter and you’re talking about her as if she’s some slag!’ she shouted at him down the phone.
Richard was immediately onto me, demanding to know