Mummy, Make It Stop (22 page)

It turned out that Phil was getting his drugs from Pete, Tanya’s ex, who was out of prison and back dealing. I said I’d think about it. I was shocked - and a bit intrigued too. If Jody took them, perhaps there wasn’t really any harm? And I wanted to know what the ‘buzz’ was like. Was I missing something great?

I didn’t take the drugs then. But a few weeks later I decided to say yes. It was a stupid thing to do. But I was eighteen and not very wise. I didn’t think about what it might lead to. I hadn’t taken drugs since the day Tanya and Pete had spiked my tea. Now I convinced myself this was a bit of harmless fun. I swallowed a couple of pills and the effect was amazing. I felt warm and bouncy and chatty and really good about myself. I couldn’t believe it.

Within a few weeks I was taking drugs regularly. Daniel and I would go over to Jody and Phil’s and we’d all take them together. Daniel liked the effects as much as I did. At the beginning it was purely social, but soon I was taking them more often. Every few days, when the girls were sleeping and Daniel was at work, I’d slip a small white pill into my mouth. The effects were dramatic. I had loads of energy, felt confident and strong, stayed awake for ages and, best of all, as far as I was concerned, I had no appetite.

I had been a size sixteen all through my early teens. After I had Emily I went down to a size fourteen, and after Sophie I lost a bit more. But once I started taking the drugs the weight just fell off me, and before I knew it I was a size ten. Suddenly I could wear the pretty clothes other girls wore. I wasn’t the dumpy one, hiding in a baggy jumper; I could slip into a mini-skirt or a cropped top and feel good. I used to look at myself in the mirror and think, is that really me? Tanya was the pretty, slim one in our family, and I’d always felt like the ugly one. That went very deep - all the years of name-calling and hurtful comments, mainly from Mum, had made me feel so bad about myself that it wasn’t easy to change. I still felt ugly, but at least I was slim and ugly, and that did help my confidence.

To my delight, I was able to slip into the gorgeous size-ten white wedding dress Jody had got from her sister. Daniel and I got married when I was just nineteen and he was twenty-three.

It was a quiet wedding, but lovely. We were able to pay for it after I was awarded £7,500 in compensation for the abuse I had suffered at the hands of Terry and George. It was something Anna had fought for over the years - she was determined both Tanya and I should have it, after what we had been through - and I was so grateful to her when it finally came through. I hadn’t really believed it would ever happen. It was a huge sum to us. After we had paid £1,000 for the wedding and honeymoon, we saved the rest, handing £2,000 to Daniel’s dad to invest for us. He already had some shares, and he put our money into them too, all in his name. That left us with £4,500, which we put into the bank.

Emily was almost three and Sophie was a few months old when we married. They were our guests of honour, wearing pretty little mint-coloured bridesmaid’s dresses. All of Daniel’s family came and, on my side, Dad and Sandra and Nan. I didn’t know where Paul was, Tanya wasn’t speaking to me, Jamie was still convalescing and I didn’t invite Mum because I knew she’d find a way to spoil it for me, and I wasn’t going to let anything - or anyone - do that.

We married in the local register office and had a buffet reception in the local social club. Then Daniel and I had a week-long honeymoon in Turkey, while his parents looked after the girls. It was the first time Daniel or I had ever been on a plane or travelled abroad. We sat side by side, amazed that this huge metal thing could lift off the ground, and both of us were relieved when it landed safely. We had a brilliant week, lying on the beach, playing in the sea and wandering in the local village, fascinated by all the foods and trinkets and clothes we’d never seen before.

Once we were back at home, everything seemed a bit flat. So I started going out on Friday nights with Daniel’s sister, Joanne, who by this time was training to be an accountant. We went out to local pubs and clubs and had a really good time. Soon we were going out on Fridays and Saturdays, and then Sundays too. Daniel said he didn’t mind. Looking back, he probably did, but I think he felt it wouldn’t be fair to ask me to stay in all the time. He didn’t really want to go out, and we couldn’t afford a babysitter anyway, so he looked after the girls while I let my hair down and danced and drank with his sister.

All I wanted was some fun. It was so good to get out of the house and to feel like more than just a mum. And once I was dressed up and out partying, I found I was getting a lot of attention from men. That was new. In the past I was never noticed, but now I’d lost weight and dyed my hair much blonder, lots of men offered me drinks, asked for my number and wanted to go out with me. I always said no - I didn’t want to cheat on Daniel, I just wanted to have a good time and feel young. But I couldn’t help being flattered by all the attention I was getting. And when I was home with Daniel again, it was hard not to see him as a bit dull. I tried to get him to go out with me, but he wouldn’t. ‘You go on, I’ll be fine at home,’ he’d say, giving me a peck on the cheek.

Our life had settled into a steady routine. He would come home at half past six and I’d have tea ready. Then he’d relax with a few cans of lager while I bathed the girls and put them to bed. And by ten we’d go to bed too. I couldn’t help feeling that Daniel was old before his time, and I didn’t want to be like that, I wanted to enjoy being young while I had the chance.

One day, a couple of months after my wedding, I bumped into Tanya in the street. She did a double-take. ‘God, Louise, I’d heard you’d lost weight, but you look amazing,’ she said.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘How are you?’ Then I realised she was pregnant.

‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘I bet Gary’s happy about it.’

‘I’m not with Gary any more,’ she said. ‘We split and I’m with Gerald now - the baby’s his. I’m not working, just looking after Callum and waiting for the baby. Why don’t you come over and see me later?’

I was startled. Was this Tanya thawing out and wanting to be friends again? If so, then I was happy. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure where you’re living.’

I knew she had moved in with Cheryl a few months earlier. Cheryl had a house on a brand new estate up the road, but some of the people on her street had found out that she was on the game and gone round and smashed her windows in. It must have been really frightening for her, alone there with her little son, and she probably welcomed Tanya’s company. But if Tanya had split with Cheryl’s brother, perhaps she had moved out?

‘I’m still at Cheryl’s,’ she said. ‘I look after the kids while she’s at work. Gerald doesn’t live with me, he’s got his own place up the road. He shares with some mates and I don’t want to live there - his friends are too wild. So Gerald comes to see me at my place.’

It was all a lot to take in. Tanya pregnant, by some guy I’d never met. And from what she said, they weren’t likely to stay together. He sounded like someone who didn’t want the commitment. And Tanya must know it.

‘I’ll come round at tea time,’ I told her. ‘I’ll bring the girls.’

I did, and Tanya and I became friends again. I was glad. I’d worried about her and wanted to be there for her. And I’d missed her.

That summer she had a little girl, Michelle. And, to no-one’s surprise, her boyfriend disappeared. So Tanya decided to go back to Pete, the father of her first baby.

And in September I decided to leave Daniel. We had only been married for seven months. I knew he’d be devastated, and his family too. I knew I wasn’t being fair to him. But I felt I had to do it. I was fond of Daniel, but I didn’t really love him. He’d always been good to me, and had loved me when I was fat and no-one else looked at me. He had stood by me and was the father of my girls. He was a good person. But I was beginning to feel as if my life was over before it had started. And I wanted to go out and live.

Chapter Seventeen

Daniel was very bitter about me leaving him. He didn’t want the marriage to end, and he couldn’t understand how I could do it. The way he saw it, we’d had everything, and I’d thrown it away.

I could see why he felt the way he did. But for me it was different. I had been with him since I was fourteen and I felt hemmed in. Losing so much weight and then finding that other men were attracted to me opened up a whole new world, and I wanted to be out there in it.

I felt so sorry and so guilty for hurting Daniel. If there had been a way I could have done it without causing him pain, I would have. As it was, his hurt became bitterness and anger, which made him want to hurt me.

The house was in my name, as I’d signed the council documents, so Daniel moved back in with his parents. He took everything he could - including the TV, stereo and PlayStation. Then he froze our bank account, so that I couldn’t get hold of the money we had put away, from my compensation. He told me I would never have it. He had the phone cut off - we had one by then - because it was in his name.

The phone and the TV I could cope with, but I didn’t know what to do about the money. That money meant such a lot to me, because it was an acknowledgment of the pain and suffering I had been through. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing it. In the end, Daniel let me have £2,000, but he took the other £4,500, including the money we had given to his father to invest. His parents were devastated by the split; they blamed me, and supported Daniel in keeping the money. They told me I would have to prove that it was mine. And just to rub it in, Daniel spent some of it on things for his mum’s house, including a giant TV and a stereo.

There was nothing I could do, but it was a bitter pill to swallow. And I wasn’t wise with the money I did have. It disappeared in a matter of weeks - spent on drugs, nights out and gifts for the kids. I should have put some by, but I didn’t. I felt heady with my new freedom and by this time I was experimenting with more drugs. I had tried both cocaine and ecstasy, though mostly I still just took amphetamines.

After the money was gone, I had to survive on benefits, because Daniel refused to give me any money. I couldn’t go out to work, because the girls were still only two and four. It was tough, and of course there was no money for drugs or to pay babysitters so that I could go out.

Daniel also refused to have the girls regularly. At first he didn’t see them at all, saying that he needed time to get his head round the split. Then he saw them, but refused to have them overnight, saying there wasn’t room at his mum’s. He was determined not to give me a break, and did everything he could to make my life difficult.

It wasn’t long before I met a new man. Trevor was out clubbing with some mates one night when he caught my eye and then came over and offered to buy me a drink. We started seeing one another, and within weeks I was head over heels in love. It made me even more certain that I hadn’t really loved Daniel. He’d offered me security, which I had needed so badly, and for that I would always be grateful, but I wanted to love someone, and I thought I’d found my ideal man in Trevor. He was twenty-five, tall and skinny, with large eyes. He didn’t move in with me because he had his own house a few streets away from mine. He used to come over at night, once the girls were in bed, so he didn’t have much to do with them. I hoped things might get more serious between us, but after we’d been together for almost a year, a local kid told me they had seen Trevor’s car parked outside the house of a girl I thought was a really close friend on Christmas Day.

He was having an affair with her and I was devastated. We had a huge row, and he denied it at first, before admitting it and saying he didn’t really love me anyway. I felt doubly betrayed, and all my old feelings of not being good enough surfaced with a vengeance.

For days I just cried. I had thought I’d met the perfect man, and he turned out to be just another two-timing creep. I felt so low for a while that I thought of killing myself. But I couldn’t leave my girls. They were beautiful, and I knew I had to stay around to protect and love them.

I decided to move house, and went into a private rental, in the same street as Tanya. The house wasn’t in a great state - it smelled of damp and looked tatty - but I felt I needed a change, so I took it. My rent was paid for me, as I was on benefits. I had thought a new house would give me a fresh start, but I still felt very low.

Once I’d moved in, I realised the house was in a worse state than I’d thought. There were mushrooms growing out of the dining room wall, and the kitchen ceiling was caving in. It was so damp that the kitchen lights didn’t work. A friend advised me to call the council’s environmental health department. They came round and discovered, among other things, that the living-room fire was emitting poisonous carbon monoxide - it could have killed me and the girls.

I called the landlord and asked him to fix some of the problems. He arrived with his two heavyweight, menacing sons and began threatening me. One of his sons pushed me up against a wall and told me I’d better get out and stop causing trouble. Then he kissed me on the cheek, in a really spine-chilling way, and told me he’d be back. I was terrified. I went round to the council’s housing office and begged for somewhere new to live, but they told me I’d have to wait months. I couldn’t afford to get the repairs done myself, so I had to live, with my girls, in a damp, dangerous house, with a boarded-up window and a fire we couldn’t use.

By this time Daniel had met a girl called Lisa, who was from South Africa. They got a house together, only a few streets from me. Daniel knew what a difficult time I was having and how little money I had, but he refused to help me. Even though he was now happy with Lisa, he remained angry and bitter.