I stood in the hallway, surrounded by my Louis Vuitton suitcases. My initials, a large HB, broke the stripe down the front of each. I’d been so sure our marriage would last, I’d even had the same two letters put on the handle. How stupid I’d been.
Leaving them there, I climbed the creaking, old stairway to the landing. Ivan’s door was shut. I curled my fingers around the doorknob and, without knocking, pushed it open. ‘I’m off,’ I said, looking him straight in the eye. He didn’t move or answer. I walked a couple of steps into the room, feeling tension tighten across my shoulders, resisting the temptation to turn and run. He couldn’t hurt me now but fear doesn’t let go that easily. ‘I’m not sure of my plans. I might pop back.’
He didn’t seem to care.
Ten minutes later, the suitcases were jammed into the boot and the back seats of my red BMW. Luckily, I’d been clever since we wed. To give Ivan his due, he’d never questioned the amount of money I appeared to need so my bank balance was exceedingly healthy.
There were sufficient funds to cover a few weeks stay in a hotel. Longer if I could drop my expectations. But staying in a hotel didn’t fit with my plan.
So it was I found myself a few hours later pulling up outside the epitome of suburbia, AKA my mother’s house. I stared out the car window and sighed. A few days here and I’d be screaming. A week and I’d be tearing my eyes out. Two weeks, and I might be resorting to violence.
But I knew the role I needed to play and moving back home would help. It would give it an authenticity that I might struggle to pull off if I was living in a luxurious hotel.
I hadn’t contacted her to say I was coming. I wasn’t sure of the response so arriving unannounced was a safer bet. Present her with a fait accompli. She would be too conscious of the curtain-twitching neighbours on each side of the terraced house to turn me away from their doorstep. Much as she’d like to slam the door in my face.
Although she’d never been what you could term a loving mother, it wasn’t until I was suspended from school when I was sixteen that our relationship really fell apart.
Mother was called to a meeting with the school head, a tall, angular woman with unusually long arms and fingers, named, rather appropriately, Crabtree. ‘I’m horrified, appalled and disappointed to have to tell you, Mrs Parker that your daughter was caught…’ she hesitated and swallowed before lowering her voice to a barely audible whisper. ‘In flagrante delicto.’
My poor mother, she who had married her first-ever boyfriend, my father, and had I’m certain only slept with him, looked suitably horrified, but it was obvious she’d no idea what the head was talking about.
‘They caught me and Simon shagging, Ma.’ I raised my eyes to the ceiling when it still didn’t sink in. ‘Sex, Ma. Me and Simon were having sex.’
That word, of course, she did know.
‘Both Simon and your daughter have been suspended for a week and will only be accepted back into the school if we are assured this…’ Crabtree’s face creased as she sought for an appropriate word, ‘…behaviour isn’t repeated.’
‘Of course.’ I could see the cogs turning in my mother’s head.
‘We hope there will be no repercussions to further interfere with Hannah’s education.’
‘Repercussions?’
‘She’s afraid I’ll be up the duff, Ma.’ I shook my head. ‘I shouldn’t be; Simon used a condom. Although,’ I tilted my head as if giving the situation careful consideration, ‘he did have to pull out very quickly when we were disturbed. I hope that won’t have any repercussions.’
‘I’ll take her to the GP. Make sure.’ My mother hesitated, her hands gripping the handle of one of only two handbags she owned. It was worn around the edges, a bit like her. ‘Hannah won’t get into trouble for this, will she? With the police, I mean.’
Mrs Crabtree sniffed. ‘Hannah and Simon are both lucky, Mrs Collins. They are over sixteen.’
So last year, I was committing a crime. It wouldn’t have stopped me, but it was probably as well they didn’t know. Or that the boys handed over their pocket money in return for fumbling between my legs or having a feel of my barely-there breasts.
Luckily, they didn’t know any of this.