RAPE OR PASSION - Chapter 8

I closed my front door and leaned against it in the dark.

Tears started to fall soundlessly down to my chest.
Lorraine had totally broken my heart.

I went through to the kitchen and made myself a much needed coffee. I must have smoked half a dozen cigarettes.
I went to go to bed and stood looking at my beautiful bedroom. All the dark purple walls gleamed in the soft lighting. On the left of the doorway the wall was all mirrors and the alcoves either side of the sheepskin topped bed were perfectly fitted with the hand built wardrobes that Tony had laboured long over.
I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my stricken face in the mirrored wall.
I could not get into that bed again.

I went into the lounge where the yorkstone fireplace that Tony built housed a beautiful gas fire and reached around the wall to hold our collection of music albums, neatly stacked next to the record player.
I gazed at the rocking chair that Tony had found for me when he visited the dump during my pregnancy. I had restored it and upholstered it with loving care.
I slumped down on the couch we had chosen together and I admired again the lovely ornaments that had been given to us on our wedding day, by so many happy guests.
I could not bear the sight of any of it.
Dylan was following me around the house forlornly trying to attract my attention so I returned to the kitchen and opened the back door to let him out into the garden.
This time I followed him.
I sat on a garden bench that Tony had slung together with breeze blocks and scaffold boards.
I noticed that Dylan and Dan had been digging up what was left of the lawn.
The hard standing at the end of the garden, that Tony had made for a shed he was planning, was full of roofing materials and scaffold poles.
In short there was not a single square inch of our home that did not carry happy memories which were turning to dust before my very eyes.

Dylan buried his head into my lap and I lifted him up to cry silently into his soft fur.
Nicki came over the fence, curious that we were out in the garden in the dead of night.
She tried to nose her way into the cuddle as she always did, so we accommodated her too.
They could feel my sobs though I made no sound and Dylan tried to lick the tears from my sodden face.
All night I cried.
I thought I would never stop.

---

At dawn Dan woke up and I heard him jumping around on his bed. Always so full of enthusiasm in the mornings - how could I deceive him that everything was normal?
I have no idea how I pulled myself through our normal routine of breakfast and dressing until the post arrived.
Dylan barked as the letters hit the doormat.
Exhausted and braindead I picked them up and of course, there was a letter with Tony's scrawling handwriting all over the envelope.
I set it down unopened on the kitchen table and ignored it.

Three days went by like that.
I did not step into my bedroom.
I did not change my clothes.
I did not answer the door or the phone.

At some point Adele came down the stairs with Joanne on her hip to see if I wanted to go to the beach for the day.
I said I was unwell and she glanced at my face and retreated saying "Ooh, if it is a flu I don't want it!"
I don't think it occurred to her that anything was wrong, even though I must have looked a complete state.

As Wednesday wound to a close I somehow pulled myself together, stopped crying and had a bath.
Tony was due home from the oil rig during the afternoon of the following day and I had to decide what I was going to do.

Early Thursday morning I went to the bank and drew out a small amount of cash.
I did not go shopping but returned to the house of painfully happy memories.
I packed a small suitcase with a few basic outfits.

I hid the case with my handbag in a cupboard under the stairs in which we stored our coats.
I washed, dressed and put on my make up carefully, so that I appeared as normal as possible.
I asked Adele to let Dan play with Joanne upstairs.

When Tony turned his key in the lock he found me sitting in my rocking chair, silent in the lounge.
He looked rough.
He had not shaved in a fortnight because he had developed a touch of frostbite in his beard.
He was also drunk.
Drinking on the train home from Aberdeen had become a habit over the past few months and I rarely seemed to see him sober any more.
He didn't ask me where Dan was.
He just flopped down on the couch and stretched himself out with his hands behind his head.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" I asked tonelessly, which made him widen his eyes momentarily.
"Bad?" he ventured in a questioning manner.

"The bad news is that I have been unfaithful to you." I lied, letting that sink in for some moments.
Tony did not flinch.
"With whom?" he asked without moving and I knew that he was thinking that he was about to half murder someone, but I had that covered.
"I met a guy in the Marine the other night, he works as a shopfitter, comes from out of town. I went back to his lodgings with him and one thing led to another."
I was surprised how easily I could lie to him.
He deserved it.

Tony slowly turned to face the back cushions of the couch.
I believe he did that because he did not want me to see him cry.

I went to the kitchen and made two cups of coffee, slowly.
I stared at the chrome electric kettle reflecting my distorted face back at me as it hissed and finally reached boiling point.

I carried the cups into the lounge and placed one on the low table beside Tony and resumed my seat in the rocking chair.

"Don't let your coffee get cold" I said flatly after a few minutes of complete silence.
He turned to sit up and the look he gave me was pure hatred and I just had to laugh.
A sneering evil laugh that I had never heard escape me before.
I finished my coffee and laid the cup down saying,
"Do you want to hear the good news?"
He simply pulled a resigned expression and glared at me.

"You can move your girlfriend Lorraine into this house, Tony, because I am leaving you, right now."

The dawn of guilt swept across his entire body as if he had been physically smacked.

I got up, went quickly to the cupboard under the stairs, took out my coat, scarf and the two bags.
I walked to the front door and I did not look back as I slammed the door so hard that the whole house seemed to shudder.

I walked out of Tony's life holding far less than I had arrived with.
I left Dan, Dylan, Nicki and everything I had worked so hard for.

I bought a train ticket for Liverpool Street in London and as the train pulled away from Clacton-on-Sea I saw my face reflected in the window glass.
I wore an expression that I had never seen there before.
My face looked like it was carved in granite.