RAPE OR PASSION - Chapter 21

I soon discovered that I was missing a number of things from my life.
I had always wanted another child but it simply had never happened.
I had never used contraception since I had tried the coil inserted into my womb and Tony had complained that he could feel it.
I had it removed after only wearing it for a few months.
After that I considered the contraceptive pill but another baby was appealing to me so I just let nature follow it's own course.
I had never forgotten the words of the Maharajah who had told me "You will have a very important child and then wait a long time for another". I was beginning to wonder just how long I would have to wait.

Elaine was coming back to the UK but intended to go to live in Rainham, Essex with her parents.
This struck me as very odd.
Elaine's fierce independence seemed to have been curtailed by her experiences in Israel but I waited to see her with much anticipation because I had missed our girlie chats and sharing of everything.
I had no other female friends that I trusted in quite the same way as Elaine.

I was not in love with Tony any more. that much was obvious.
I was actually using him to provide me with a lifestyle that supported my plans for the home and my studies. He was using me as a housekeeper/PA/dogsbody so I felt the contempt was at least equal.

I was getting uncomfortable about my devotion to Dougie because he did not seem to want to progress beyond the level of commitment he currently had.
There was never any chance of him and I setting up a home together and then he announced that he was seeing another woman, who was cooking for him and doing his washing and ironing.
I tried to act as if this was not touching me in any way but it was.
I wanted to be his woman but I was slowly realising that this would never happen.
I started to feel rejected and as luck would have it I had a bad fall on the beach one day and slipped a couple of discs in my spine, putting myself out of action long enough to reassess my situation.

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Six weeks laid flat on the lounge floor in agony was no fun.
This time I had no helpful Elaine to pick up the household reins, so the house quickly became a mess.
People would still visit but it never seemed to dawn on any one of them to actually clean up after themselves at all.
Tony came and went to his oil rig and pretty much left me to it.
Danny was typically absorbed with his experiments or out on his bike.
I had a lot of time alone so I thought hard about my circumstances and what was the way to fill the gaping hole I felt growing like a tumour in my heart.

To say that I was becoming embittered would be an understatement.

There came a Friday night when Tony went out for his usual weekend binge and I was steaming angry that the house was in such a dreadful state. I crawled from the lounge to the kitchen, which was really cold and piled high with dirty dishes and washing. I dragged myself up by the kitchen sink and stood up as straight as I could for the first time in ages.
The world went pink, red and then abruptly black.
I regained consciousness lying awkwardly on the stone cold floor but there was something strange. There was no pain.
I picked myself up to discover that I must have fainted with the pain of standing and then I must have fallen in such a way as to knock the two discs back into their allotted places.
I was pain free but very weak.
It doesn't take long for muscles to go soft with lack of use.
I set about cleaning up the kitchen and by the time Tony reappeared home from his night out I was vacuuming the lounge.

I practically ignored his existence after that.
During the very next day I found myself applying to work at a large local supermarket, stacking shelves.
There was a very good reason for this.
I wanted to strengthen the muscles in my back so that they were like cords of twisted steel and my fragile discs would be supported. In this way I would prevent a relapse.

Every evening from 5 until 9 I would treat shelf stacking as a training exercise.
It did not take long before I was able to feel the difference in all my muscles.
I was back on physical form.

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One of my favourite friends had been away working as a roadie with various bands and celebrities. He had a few contracts under his belt and was very experienced at mounting and dismounting musical equipment.
He got a contract working for a famous band as they toured America.
After several months away he suddenly returned to Clacton to visit his family.
He popped in to visit us during the early afternoon of one Saturday and offered me some cocaine.

I had never tried that but with a storm of brainwaves, I thought it would make a nice change from the routine dullness I was currently feeling.
He gave me one small line just before I left to go to work at the supermarket.
I remember that I was wearing my uniform and I remember that I came up on a headrush like no other I had ever experienced as I passed through the supermarket back doors.
I raced through my work and finished the shift helping others.
I was so energised that I ran all the way home and flew up to the bathroom to bath and wash my hair.
Within less than an hour I was running down to Reg Brown's dressed in a gorgeous Indian muslin and multi-coloured dress and not a lot else.
I was very thirsty and drank about a pint of cider before someone mentioned that Babs was having a party at her new home in the old nurse's bungalows at the back of the hospital.
"Cool" I said and decided that now would be a great time to run there next!
I ran out of the pub and set off towards Babs' when I noticed pounding feet following me.
I stopped and turned to see Jai chasing me at full speed.
When he caught up he said breathlessly "Why are you running? Chill out!"
I replied "Why are you following me?" and felt a little irritable that I could never go anywhere without someone trying to tell me what to do or not to do.

There was only a few hundred yards left and so we walked along together.
Jai tried to pretend that he was going to Babs' party but I realised that he was just keeping the vow.
The one that the boys had made about never leaving me alone for a single night again.
Since the rape that vow had been noticeably and rigorously honoured yet the rape had been more than a year ago at that time.

I spent the whole of that night running.
I ran to the beach, I ran along the beach.
I ran to the airfield and I completed a circular route back to my house by running through the streets, barefoot in the middle of the night.
I was exhilarated by the running and when I finally got home with Jai hot on my heels I was in a terrific mood.
We spent the early hours rolling each other around the lounge floor and Jai proved that he could still make love like a demon for hours and endless hours.
At dawn the cocaine was wearing off and I lay listening to the dawn chorus thinking out loud.
"Blimey," I said to Jai, "I don't think I had better have any more of THAT stuff!"

Luckily I did not work on Sundays because the next day I was so emotionally messed up that I was crying at television soap opera rubbish which never usually touched me.
I was definitely not going to have cocaine again!

I was beginning to piece together what it was that was missing from my life
and I did not have any idea how I was going to fix it.

On the following Monday morning a large package dropped on the front door mat and I blearily went to collect it.
It was from BP and, as Tony never read any documentation, I opened it to see if it was important.
He was offshore so I was expecting just more reports and company spin about how blooming marvelous they were.
However, this package was entirely a different kettle of fish and it smelled very good.
It was "an offer we could not refuse".
The paperwork spelled out quite clearly that for Tony to be promoted any higher within his profession he would need to move to the Aberdeen area.
The offer was stupendous.
All moving costs were generously covered, even pre-visits with hotel stays to find suitable permanent accommodation was factored into the deal. There was also a large cash incentive to cover incidental expenses.

I sat in my kitchen and spent hours reading the minutae and fine print. The deal was indeed one of the most tempting offers I had ever seen and not only that, as I considered the idea of living 400 miles away from Clacton and all that it represented in my life, it was starting to look like a way to heal the hole I was sensing in my heart.

When Tony returned home I was buzzing with the idea.
He, of course, was utterly reluctant.
I could see that this would take some persuasion and I set about explaining all the details of the deal and that BP had conveyed it in such a way that should he refuse it, he was unlikely to be offered promotion.

I asked him to think about it and he suddenly agreed to check out properties around Aberdeen by going back to the rig a day early and returning a day late. This gave him time to check out what kind of property was available.
He decided that he did not want all the work of another restoration project so he intended to look for new builds.
He had very exacting standards, having worked on enough shoddily built new estates and so he insisted on visiting them all in person to see if the workmanship matched the plans he was shown by salesmen.

Finally after several months of searching, I was beginning to suspect that he was simply having a fine old time in Aberdeen rather than actually looking for a new home for us. But he surprised me with a gorgeous brochure and announced that he had finally found a top class builder who was creating one cul-de-sac on the outskirts of a village called Newmachar, about 15 miles north of Aberdeen city but only 6 miles from the airport and BP HQ.

We had a choice of 12 similar houses and the only one that I liked was the one that was to be built sideways on to the proposed roadway directly at the end of the proposed banjo shaped plot.
Tony grinned "Yep, best views from there too!" He pointed out that the one I had selected was the only house on the plot which had a view all the way across the lowlands, over the airport and as far as the North Sea.
The front aspect faced the Grampian Hills which he said glowed with purple and yellow heather in spring and throughout the summer.

I waited with intense anxiety as he phoned the agents.
He offered a deposit on Number 12 Blackbraes Way which was just a muddy field at that time.
He came off the phone triumphant!
We set about putting our home at the back of the Town Hall, Clacton-on-Sea up for sale.
We were getting out of the Den of Iniquity and it would not be a day too soon.

"This will make or break us" I said to him solemnly and he looked a little quizzical.
I did not elaborate on my statement in any way.
Time would tell and time was beginning to run away with us.