‘Am I the only one wishing I’d taken up some of that boxercise nonsense?’ Sarah asked, panting, leaning against the side of her van, hands on knees. ‘Bernie, I love you,’ she spluttered between breaths, ‘but we’re too old for this.’
Bernadette grinned, then realised that her emotional barometer had swung the other way, and felt tears falling down her face. She had no idea why. Bugger. ‘Sorry, honey,’ she immediately apologised. ‘This is supposed to be a Thelma and Louise moment and I’m turning it into Sleeping with the Fecking Enemy.’
‘Don’t you dare apologise,’ Sarah chided, summoning all her strength to push herself up and fold her arms around her friend.
Bernadette rested her cheek on Sarah’s shoulder. ‘I just feel… feel… like I’ve been totally spineless. And I still am. I’m bloody terrified. How pathetic is that? I keep thinking what if he’s right. What if I’m hopeless, if I can’t manage on my own, if I’ll fall apart without him? I know I won’t – but I can’t stop the conversation in my head, that niggling bloody voice of his, the one that’s always doubting me, telling me I can’t do anything right.’
‘Honey, you’ve listened to that for thirty years – it’s not going to turn off overnight. But you’re here, you’re doing this, and it’s going to be okay. It really is. I promise you.’
Bernadette lifted her head so they were face to face. ‘And what am I going to say when he turns up here, or at my work?’ Another two fat tears exploded from her eyes. That was it. That was the crux of it, the biggest bloody terror of all. What was he going to do when he found out? He’d never laid a finger on her, but somehow that didn’t matter. How many times had she told patients that emotional abuse could be as damaging as physical abuse? When she was on general wards, before she moved to A & E, how many times had she watched a woman flinch at visiting time when her husband walked in the door, all flowers and proclamations of care. Bernadette had learned to spot them a mile off. The men who acted like the Billy Big Bollocks, the charmers who could win anyone over with the right words and a bit of charisma, while the pupils of the women’s eyes darted from face to face, shadowed with the fear of knowing that it could change in a heartbeat, or that they’d pay for it later.
Sometimes she felt being married to Kenneth had made her a far better nurse. She understood. Saw the truth that others might overlook. If her thoughts were welcome, she’d gently caution those women to build a support network, to make plans, to find ways of building their confidence in the hope that they’d find it in themselves to make the break.
Now it was time to take her own advice.
‘I can do this,’ she said, to herself more than to Sarah.
Sarah’s hug was warm and it was crushing to the chest area. ‘You can, my love. Let’s keep going. That’s what we need to do today. One thing off the list, now on to the next. But I need to go to the loo first because I’m at that age.’
She nipped in through the side door from the garage to the toilet off the utility room, then reappeared a few moments later.
Bernadette was already waiting in the car, anxiety over telling her daughter rising with every second.
After the shortest fifteen minutes of her life, they pulled into the driveway of Nina’s home in a new estate on the outskirts of Bearsden.
‘I’m going to wait here.’ Sarah told her, producing a Kindle from her handbag. ‘Just shout if you need me.’
‘Thanks. I mean it, Sarah. Thanks so much for this.’
Hands shaking, Bernadette pulled the handle on the door and climbed out. This was it. Everything that had been done already this morning could be undone. She could take her stuff back, unpack it again, put it where it had been and he would be none the wiser. But once the words she was about to say next were out, there was never going to be a way to take them back. After a lifetime of thinking about it, of planning how she’d break the news, of rumination over the sentences and coming up with arguments to counter the objections, the time had come. And her mind was totally blank.
She rang the doorbell.
Don’t be in. Don’t be in. Please don’t be in.
The thudding of little Casey’s footsteps down the wooden floor of the hall told her otherwise.
It took a few seconds for Nina to catch up, and another few for her to unlock the multitude of contraptions, designed to stop an inquisitive toddler, with a flair for the Houdini, from escaping.
Eventually the door swung open and there was her daughter, her three-year-old grandson Casey at her knee, eighteen-month-old Milo on her hip.
For a moment, Nina’s likeness to Kenneth jarred her. The same tall, athletic frame. His blue eyes. The dark hair that he’d raged against when it began to turn grey. There was no denying that physically, she came from her father’s side of the gene pool. Thankfully, emotionally, she had more of Bernadette’s DNA.
‘Mum! What are you doing here? Come on in! You should have phoned and I’d have made something for lunch and…’ She stopped. Her gaze went to the van in the driveway, to her Auntie Sarah, as she’d always called her, sitting in the driver’s seat. And then back to her mum, standing on the doorstep, her face grey, her eyes bloodshot with tears. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered. ‘What is it? Has something happened to Dad?’
8
Lila
At the traffic lights, Lila fixed her lipstick, pouted, took a selfie, and posted it to her Instagram. No hashtags required. She’d have a hundred likes within minutes. That’s what happened when you made a bit of an effort with your appearance. It was all marketing, wasn’t it? Everything was just fodder for Facebook, for Twitter, for Instagram. Of course, she posted simultaneously on all of them. A gorgeous meal? It went on there. A great night out? A gym session where she was looking seriously cute? All of it snapped and posted.
Her boss at work had once questioned her level of social activity and she’d pointed out that she worked far longer hours than her job spec required, so she was more than entitled to a few minutes of online action throughout the day. He’d never mentioned it since and it was just as well, because she had no intention of stopping.
It didn’t matter how she was feeling, whether she was up, down, pissed off or frustrated, the image that she put out there would convince anyone who looked at her pages that she had the most glamorous, perfect life.
And most of the time – okay, some of the time – she did. Her mother had taught her that. If they had a family crest, it would say ‘hair done, lipstick on, face the world.’
According to her social media, every day was a good day. She didn’t have stresses because she was ‘too blessed to be stressed’.She didn’t have casual friends, she had‘brilliant timeswith people who loved her’.Some might call it fake, but she preferred to think of it as spreading positivity.
