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Great Writing - Home > Extended > Three accounts of events - part 21 (a)
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Extended Work
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| Three accounts of events - part 21 (a) | |
| By teddy | ||||||
| 09 September 2007 | ||||||
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The night I found out about Lisa’s baby I broke down, literally slumped to the floor near the wall I’d leant my back against while waiting for Paul to explain why he’d had to abandon me in the middle of a cosy evening we were trying to spend together and rush off to see the woman he’d slept with four months before our wedding. My eyes got glue to his face as he delivered the news, the moment I sunk down he’d rushed to my side and was now down on his knees in front of me, his hands frantically rubbing mines. ‘Sweetheart, please talk to me,’ he was pleading. ‘For God’s sake, Adi, please, just say something.’ The growl jammed in my throat was by no means anywhere near articulate sound, but my mouth had gone dry and the flesh of my tongue felt as if it had turned into led, and by the time it came out its resonance had dropped to a faint whimper. It took quite sometime before my limbs regained enough strength to allow me to jerk my hands free and prop them onto the floor to aid myself up. I crawled to the bedroom and lapsed on the bed curling up, hands gripped between my knees. ‘How could you be so stupid?’ I muffled a groan into the pillow I’d buried my face onto when I felt Paul sliding down behind me, resting a hand on my back. ‘If you couldn’t keep your trousers on, you should’ve at least had the decency to be careful.’ ‘Adi, I promise you, I’ve never had unprotected sex with anyone else apart from you. You have to believe me.’ Had I? I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my lip hard. ‘Then how the hell did it happen?’ I whizzed. ‘I don’t know, I really don’t.’ I turned around, my stare was caustic, the voice bitter. ‘Is this the best you can come up with? What’s the probability of a man sleeping with a woman once, allegedly wearing a condom, and getting her pregnant? One in a billion? Almost non-existent?' He rolled on his back and pressed the palms of his hands into his eye sockets. ‘It was an accident.’ ‘It wasn’t only one off, Paul, was it?’ I stared at him. He moved back on his side, propped on his elbow, and stretched the free arm across. ‘Don’t touch me,’ I hissed through clenched teeth. ‘Just answer the question.’ ‘It was only Dublin, I swear.' ‘Every night of the three you spent there?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You bastard!’ I cried shrinking back to the foetal position, ‘You bastard!’ ‘Adi,’ he grabbed me in his arms and flipped me on top of him, pressing my head against his shoulder, ‘don’t…’ ‘How do you know it’s yours?’ I succumbed snivelling into his sweatshirt. ‘Lisa hasn’t seen anyone in months. I’ve known her for years, she wouldn’t lie, she wouldn’t have never come to me if she hadn’t been sure.’ One flicker of hope flushed down the drain I instantly clung onto another one. ‘Is she …is she going to keep the baby?’ ‘She comes from a devoted Catholic family, an abortion is out of the question,’ Paul whispered wearily. The world I’d been trying to climb on top of only hours ago splintered and my chest fitfully shuddered against Paul’s. ‘No!’ my face crumpled. ‘No!’ * Paul’s attempts to get me to rest that night were wasteful, Lisa and her baby stalked me as I kept drifting in and out of sleep, and by the morning my temples were throbbing with pain, which sharpened when I opened my eyes. The room dimmed and a spurt of nausea invaded me as I strived to lift my head up. ‘Paul,’ I moaned dropping my head back on the pillow. ‘Yes.’ I felt him stirring beside me. ‘Please call Tina and ask her if she can have Vicky for few hours this morning. I’m not well.’ ‘What’s wrong, sweetheart?’ he asked concerned, touching my face lightly. ‘I think I have a migraine.’ It’d been ages since I last had one and the one sprouting now felt nasty. ‘I’ll get you some tablets,’ he kindly offered. ‘You stay in bed and rest. I’ll look after Vicky.’ ‘How could you?’ I muttered. ‘She’ll need changing and feeding, you’ve never done these before,’ I jogged his memory how petty his parental contribution had been so far. ‘We’ll be all right, sweetheart, trust me.’ A couple of hours later when the pain had eased off I scrambled out of bed and ventured downstairs where I found them lounged on the living room’s floor, colourful wooden blocks scattered all around them. ‘Mummy, ‘ook!’ Vicky turned and beamed at me when she heard me entering the room, pointing at the miniature resemblance of a building shaping in front of her. ‘Very nice, baby.’ I smiled mildly, kneeling down next to her. ‘What is it?’ ‘’ouse,’ she solemnly informed me, picking up a bright red cone and handing it over to Paul, who seemed to have been appointed with the assembling duties. ‘Pau,’ she demanded, ‘tis.’ ‘How are you feeling, sweetheart?’ Paul’s eyes searched my face with worry. ‘Ok I suppose,’ I shrugged avoiding his stare. ‘Has she eaten?’ I asked looking at Vicky, a futile question I realized a moment later spotting the dried smudges of porridge sprawled on Vicky’s top and his T-shirt. ‘Hum, yes,’ Paul nodded following my eyes. ‘And she insisted I needed feeding as well.’ He attempted a smile. ‘Do you want some breakfast?’ ‘No, thanks.’ I shook my head and the wink of pain triggered by the move made me squint. ‘I’ll have a shower and then I’ll take Vicky to the park,’ I informed him baldly. ‘Can I…’ he asked timidly, ‘can I come with you?’ ‘No, I’d rather go on my own,’ I said looking away. I got up and moved towards the door, tightening the bathrobe around my waist. He reached me as I was just about to leave the room. ‘Adi, please,’ the back of his hand touched my face, ‘don’t be like this.’ ‘Don’t.’ I cocked my head and gaped at him, my hands rose and flicked, shielding the air between us. ‘Just….don’t.’ * Mum used to say I was born with a smile on my face and in my twenty five and something years of humble existence that smile had faded and scowled many times, but even at the lowest it had always found something to cling onto and bounced back. Now Paul’s managed to chase it away big time and, as melodramatic as it might sound, I dread to think it might be gone for good. I’m not quite sure if he’s fully aware of how much damage he’s done, but I know he hasn’t really grasp why this is happening to him, more over, why he has no control over things, and I think that makes him confused and scared. It pains me to see his haunted eyes following me around everywhere and I wish I could stay dignified in my suffering, you know, like one of those heroines in award winning blockbusters, no matter what the scenario stuck by the man all the way, but how can I when I’m scared shit myself? I’m soon supposed to marry a guy who in few months time will father the baby of another woman and I don’t know if I can handle it. Isn’t that enough to tip you over the edge? Well, I’m telling you this, it definitely is for me. Becoming Lisa’s child’s stepmother is the most unappealing status I’ve ever had to face, I try, God knows how hard, not to think about it, but it’s insisted in following me around like a bad smell and it has stunk and stained my pitiful life and I’m frightened I might not ever be able to get rid of it. Sitting down and talking things through sounds like the most feasible option two adults would go for at times of strain, if not to sort out the problem entirely, at least to ease off the tension between them, but a decent conversation between Paul and me seems to have been long passed by date because every time I open my mouth venom is the only thing that spurts from it - Oh God, he's poisoned me, I sometimes sigh after most of the bitterness has been coughed up – and Paul’s patience gets thinner and thinner with every show I put on. ‘I need to go back to Dublin,’ he told me a few evenings ago, his fork nervously poking at the stake sprawled on the plate in front of him - we were sat around the kitchen table having dinner – ‘It’s only for a couple of days.’ The word ‘Dublin’ sent my blood racing and thick mist of anger swaddled around my brain, but I clenched my teeth and steadied my tongue, I’ve learnt these days it’s best to keep quiet. Unfortunately he hasn’t. ‘You could always come with me if you wanted.’ ‘Why?’ I hoisted my eyes and looked at him sternly. ‘couldn’t find anyone else to accompany you? Why don’t you ask Lisa again? She’s already pregnant, that should put your mind at rest.’ ‘I didn’t ask Lisa to come to Dublin the first time,’ he said, the calm of his voice would’ve fooled me hadn’t I noticed the spasm in his jaws. ‘She offered when John Carr pulled out due to health problems.’ ‘Did she offer to fuck you as well?’ The knife pricked the flesh of the meat harshly. ‘As a matter of fact, yes, she did.’ My mind stumbled unprepared for the reply, only for a second though before it hit back. ‘And of course, when have you ever turned down a chance to get laid?’ Leaving the dinner table while others are still eating is not what my parents had taught me, but sticking with the etiquette was the last of my worries that evening. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked when I got up. ‘Upstairs.’ ‘You haven’t eaten much.’ ‘I’m not hungry.’ ‘If you carry on like this you’re going to get ill.’ ‘Since when,’ I mocked a grin while pushing the chair I’d sat on moments ago underneath the table, ‘have you become so concerned with my wellbeing?’ ‘Ok, you’ve made your point,’ his voice kept unflustered, ‘now sit down and finish your dinner.’ ‘Sod off,’ I mumbled gloomly throwing the serviette collected from my lap on the table. His jaw muscles wiggled once again as he glared at me. ‘Listen, Adi,’ he rushed off his seat and got hold of my wrist twisting my arm towards him, ‘I know you’re upset, but I’m warning you, stop treating me like this.’ ‘Or you’ll do what?’ I glared back tearing my arm away from his grip. ‘Dump me? Hit me? Be my guest.’ I held my head up all the way to the door, it only bowed down and let the tears jerk free when I was out of his sight. When the morning he was supposed to leave for Dublin came I was downstairs in the hallway, my right hand hidden behind my back. ‘I’ve got something for you.’ I told him as he was about to dash out through the open door. ‘What is it?’ he smiled, a frail flicker of hope lightening up his face. ‘This,’ I said blankly stretching my arm in front of him. His smile died and his eyes narrowed when they fell on the pack of condoms held in my hand. ‘Take them, just in case,’ I tucked it into his pocket when he failed to move. ‘Adi!’ he grudged when I, mission accomplished, turned around and walked away. I ignored him and kept walking. Once in the kitchen I started clearing up the dirty dishes left from his breakfast. When I heard the door slammed, I thought he'd left but few moments later he was standing beside me by the kitchen table. ‘Can we, at least, sit down and talk about it?’ he said resting a hand on my shoulder. ‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ I replied baldly. ‘Plus, you’ve got a plane to catch.’ ‘I’m not leaving you like this,’ he didn’t give up, and I knew by the mellowness in his voice that it was one of those days he was willing to put up with my anger. ‘Sweetheart,’ he muttered in my hair as he twisted me around and pulled me in his arms, ‘I know how much you’re hurting, but we’ll get through this, you have to trust me.’ I couldn’t see how. Fathering another woman’s baby is not something you can keep forever from your close ones. One day it will come out. And what would his parents say then? How about mines? But it’s Vicky I’m most worried about. Now she’s too small to understand what’s happening, but a time will come when she’d want to know why the sibling with whom she doesn’t share the same mum was born just months after her parents had wed. What am I going to tell her? I’m sorry, sweetheart, but your dad used to have a habit of pulling his trousers down every time a pretty face was about? However, it must’ve been one of those days for me as well when I felt too emotionally exhausted to put up a fight, so I didn’t pull away when he wrapped himself around me, I just rested my head on his shoulder and cried. That night I thought I’d show my gratitude for him sticking around by living up under the sheets, but the hearty feelings only lasted until I felt him on top ready to enter, and then it was Lisa opening up beneath him, not me anymore. ‘Get off me,’ I whizzed, propping my hands in his chest and hostilely pushing him away, ‘just get off me.’ The second time he only went as far as sliding his hands underneath my top. He’s given up since. The worst bit is that I have no one to turn to for a drop of advice, no one to talk to. I know this sounds hard to believe since I’m fortunate enough to have been blessed with the most caring family ever, but it’s their overprotective love that stops me from telling them about what Paul has done. Let’s say I told my dad, what would he do? He’d be on the first plane to London and God help Paul when he’d get here. My mum? She’d start crying and then she’d tell dad and he’d end up on the first plane to London anyway. My brother Seb would never stand by Paul’s side as his best man if he knew and he’d probably never speak to me again if I went along with this wedding. As for Tina, I can’t even think what she might do, she’d probably get a court injunction against Paul, keeping him miles away from me and Vicky for the rest of our lives. There is one person left though who, I feel, would listen without prejudice and, if nothing else, lend me a shoulder to cry on. The last night blow has topped the glass and now, with one foot outside the door, I decided before I shovel the other one out and shut the door behind me, I must go and see George. It started quite innocently with a blunt statement from Paul. ‘Mum rang today, she wanted to know if we’ve made any more decision regarding the wedding. She needs to know so she can make the arrangements.’ ‘Whatever you decide it’s fine by me,’ I dashed an apathetic answer, the remote control in my hand relentlessly flicking through the TV channels. ‘Great,’ he muttered unimpressed, ‘you could show a little more interest in this wedding, at the end of the day you’re the bride.’ ‘I hope at least you intend to show up on the day and don’t make me look like a prat standing there waiting for you,’ he carried on when there was no reply from my end. My eyes left the TV screen and grinned at him. ‘That’s been taken care of already, don't you think so?’ ‘For God’s sake, Adi,’ he burst out, grabbing the remote control of my hands and chucking it on the floor, ‘how long are you going to keep on like this? Do you think I don’t know what this is doing to you, to us? Believe me, I do, it tears me to pieces to see you hurting like this and I’d give anything to make things right. I’m trying, God knows I am, but what else do you want me to do? Go and fucking blow my head off?’ I gulped, tying to push back the tears my eyes were stubbornly filling up with. ‘If you can’t even try to make an effort, we might as well call off the wedding.’ ‘Fine,’ I turned my head and looked away blankly, ‘do that then. Perhaps this is what you wanted all along and Lisa’s pregnancy must’ve come as a blessing. There you go, you have your chance now to start fresh from scratch with someone who suits you better and please, don’t miss it on my account. I’ll be fine, we’ll be fine, don’t worry.’ ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I felt his eyes staring at me in dismay. ‘I love you, you stupid idiot. I don’t care about Lisa and I don’t want this child, I don’t even need to get involved other than financially, this is what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last couple of weeks.’ ‘Listen to yourself,’ I groaned, ‘just listen to yourself. This baby, regardless of how he’s come to this world, deserves to be loved and cared for just as much as any other child does. Do you think I’d ever be able to look at myself again if I let you run away from you responsibilities as a father?’ I was gasping heavily by the time I finished. * So there I am now, on my way to see George. God knows what he’ll think of all this mess.
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