Читать книгу Unbreakable: My life with Paul – a story of extraordinary courage and love - Lindsey Hunter - Страница 7

Eight years earlier, Paul Hunter had arrived in my world without any fanfare. It started innocently enough, but none of us know how little, everyday moments are going to join together to form the story of our lives, do we? I was working in a Leeds beauty salon at the time and probably could have won competitions as the most reliable, steady 21-year-old in the city. I’d gone to a local beauty college at 16 and worked in a salon to get experience from that point on, always taking any chance for extra responsibility, always planning ahead. I’d had a pension plan and an endowment fund since my first pay packet was put into my hand as a teenager, and I’d never taken a day off work in my life. As well as working in the salon full time during the day, I worked as an assessor and tutor in a college in the city centre at night.

One day, into this sensible, organized world flew Nicky Hunter, Paul’s cousin. The door of the salon burst open and this dark-haired bundle of energy ran straight behind the reception desk and threw her arms around me. We’d met a few years earlier at college when we did some classes together but as Nicky was in the year ahead of me, we’d lost touch once she graduated. I’d always liked her, and seeing her again brought a smile to my face – she was loud, funny, and never backwards at coming forwards.

‘Lindsey!’ she screamed once she’d released me from a bear hug. ‘Where have you been?’ I hadn’t been anywhere. I was in Leeds all the time but to Nicky life was only what happened around about her, so as far as she was concerned I could have been on the Moon for three years. She had known all there was to know about my life back at college, so she launched straight into the question she was most interested in.

‘Are you still with Dave?’ she asked. Before I got a chance to answer, she went on, ‘God, that’s been years now, hasn’t it? I’ve never known anyone to have a boyfriend that long. Weren’t you only about 15 when you started seeing him?’

Nicky was right. Dave had been a family friend ever since I could remember, and we’d always hung around together. About six years ago, that natural friendship turned into an equally natural relationship when he came on holiday to Spain with my friend’s family. We went away as mates and came back as boyfriend and girlfriend. He was my first boyfriend. In fact, he had been my only boyfriend. And now, he was my ex-boyfriend.

‘We’ve split up,’ I told her, aware there was a queue forming behind her in the reception area.

‘Don’t get yourselves all worked up,’ Nicky announced to the tutting customers behind her. ‘I’ve come to book a day of beauty for my twenty-first, and I need to speak to this young lady about it in detail.’ She shepherded me out from behind the desk and onto the sofa in the waiting area. As a junior took my place, Nicky settled down for some gossip.

‘What happened, Linz?’ she whispered, no doubt hoping for something juicy.

‘Nothing really,’ I had to admit. ‘It just sort of reached an end. We weren’t going anywhere, so there didn’t seem much point in sticking together.’

Nicky didn’t mince her words. ‘Was it because he was a bit boring?’

‘He wasn’t boring!’ I protested. ‘He was just … well … normal.’

I felt I had to defend Dave; he was a genuinely nice bloke and he’d always been good to me in our years together. ‘Just because he wasn’t out on the town every night, clubbing and drinking, doesn’t mean he was boring.’

She snorted at me. ‘Ha! Maybe you’ve turned into him, Lindsey Fell. In fact, you were always in need of a bit of lightening up. You’re a bit too serious sometimes.’

Judging by her looks and gestures, my boss was making it clear that I needed to do some work, so I got Nicky booked in for her manicure, facial and everything else she could think of, swapped phone numbers, then went back to dealing with other clients. I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day, though; Nicky had always put me in a good mood, and I was glad she was back in my life.

As soon as I got home that night, the phone rang. ‘Lindsey?’ said Nicky on the other end. ‘I’ve not forgotten about you,’ she said, as if it had been much more than six hours since we last spoke. ‘This weekend you’re coming out with me and some mates. We’re going to get you enjoying yourself and meeting some lads; it’s time you had a decent social life.’ Nicky made it sound as though I was a nun, but my life wasn’t as quiet as that – just a lot calmer than hers. I had lots of friends, and I did go out a fair bit, but we weren’t wild. That just wasn’t in my nature.

I still lived with my mum, Pauline, and dad, Graham, in a house in the Leeds suburbs, the house we’d lived in since I was a baby. My big sister Tracy, who was five years older than me, had left home already. I’d been brought up in an environment where hard work and independence were thought of highly. My parents always had their own businesses, from an American-style car valeting service to a squash club, and, along with Tracy, I took all of that in from in an early age. I saw that if you were decent and worked hard, you could have a nice life. I knew that the holidays abroad and cars and house all came from the fact that my mum and dad were strong, committed people who did an honest day’s work and put their family first.

To be honest, I’d had an idyllic childhood. I loved, and was good at, gymnastics and swimming. I liked horse riding as well, and I always had Tracy there beside me whatever I was doing, so I never felt lonely. We weren’t spoiled – we were expected to do chores and be well-behaved – but Mum and Dad made sure we had a great time.

As I became a teenager, I never felt I had anything to rebel against, because I was really happy. Lots of people at school complained about their parents or home life, but I adored my family. Why would I want to do anything to hurt them? Besides, I didn’t have the personality for rebellion. I liked things to be straightforward, predictable even, and it was that side of me that Nicky seemed determined to change.

That weekend, we hit Leeds. I was a bit nervous while I was getting ready. I remembered Nicky and her friends from college and they were so colourful and lively that I wondered whether I would fit in. I put on a pair of black trousers and a plain black top and left to meet them in town. It was a cold, wet night, but when I got there, they were all skimpily dressed as if it was the middle of summer.

‘Going for a job interview later, Linz?’ joked Nicky good-naturedly as soon as she saw my outfit. ‘You’re not exactly dazzling there, are you? I’m going to have my work cut out with you; come on, let’s have a decent night for starters.’ And we did.

It was the first of quite a few, as Nicky and I realized how well we got on. Every weekend we hit the clubs and bars, and Nicky always seemed to know where there was a party going on. After being quite nervous that first night, I started to enjoy myself. This group of girls always had a laugh; they chatted up lads and got plenty of attention, but they stuck together as well. Sometimes there were a few blokes in the gang – boyfriends or brothers or just friends – but it tended to be the girls who organized everything, and who made the most impact.

I fitted in much better than I’d expected, to tell the truth. Maybe at first I was a little resistant (perhaps I was just worried about spending too much money), but I loosened up pretty quickly after my initial reservations – you couldn’t help do anything else when Nicky was around. After so many years with Dave, I was finally having the social life most other girls had been getting on with for a long time. Once Nicky came back into my life, she shook me up. She showed me how to be young and have a good time, and that was just what I needed.

She lived at home with her Mum on a council estate in Leeds, and most of their relatives seemed to have houses there as well. Nicky worked at another salon in the city centre, where she did really well with tips as the customers loved her personality, so she always had a bit of cash. We were completely different when it came to money. While Nicky was the type to spend her wages all in one go at the end of the week, I had my savings and I just couldn’t bring myself to spend a fortune on clothes. Maybe the financial stability I’d learned from my parents made me that way; although they encouraged an entrepreneurial attitude, they also made sure that any risks were measured ones. I’d built up a little safety net for myself but spending £100 on a t-shirt, as Nicky would be quite happy to do, was way outside my comfort zone.

One Friday afternoon about a month after we’d met up again, Nicky popped into my work to confirm the arrangements for a new club that we were going to that night. ‘We still on?’ she checked. ‘Course we are,’ I replied. ‘What are you wearing tonight?’ she asked. I told her that I hadn’t even thought about it, which was something Nicky couldn’t begin to understand. ‘Lindsey! That is why you always end up looking like you’re going to a funeral! You’ve got a gorgeous figure – why don’t you show it off a bit for once?’ That was a touchy subject for me. I was about 5 foot 4 inches and a size 8, but I’d always worried that I had a really big chest, so I tended to dress sensibly to cover myself up. ‘I’m too self-conscious about my boobs. I don’t want drunken men leering at me all night,’ I told her. Predictably, she said, ‘Show everyone what you’ve got, Linz. It’s not your problem, it’s theirs. Anyway, there’s loads of us going tonight, so we can always protect you.’ She mentioned the names of a few of the girls’ current boyfriends before adding, ‘And my little cousin Paul is going to drive us there – we’ll save taxi money if he’s driving, and we can always get him to be your bodyguard too.’ With that, and a reminder to get to her house early so we could do each other’s make-up, she left.

I got through my appointments that day – mostly nail extensions, which were starting to be very popular for the weekend and weddings – and thought that maybe Nicky was right, maybe I should dress a bit more like the rest of them. So that night, I took a sheer black top from my wardrobe and, instead of slipping a black t-shirt on underneath, I just wore a black bra. I was hardly half-naked, but to me, the outfit seemed pretty revealing.

I left my car at Nicky’s house – I’d never even think of driving after a drink – and she clattered down the hall as soon as she heard me, tottering on heels she could barely walk in and poured into a top that she’d probably spent a fortune on earlier that day.

‘God, Linz,’ she said, pulling at my top, ‘I can almost see a bit of flesh under there! You sure you’re feeling all right?’ Laughing, we went to her room to put the finishing touches to each other’s make-up. I felt really happy that night – Nicky had given me a bit of confidence as she had dragged me to clubs and parties and shops over the past weeks, and it had definitely been for the best.

That night, another night out in town, promised to be a good one. We heard the front door downstairs slam as we were getting our bags ready, and Nicky’s mum shouted. ‘Nicky! Our Paul’s here. You girls ready to go?’ Nicky said that we would just be a minute and that her cousin Paul should wait outside for us. I was trying to loosen up, but there were always practicalities in my mind and I needed to ask Nicky a bit about this cousin of hers.

‘This Paul. How young is he exactly?’ I asked, worried that if he was her ‘little’ cousin he might not have a licence. Or insurance. Some habits are hard to break, and being sensible hadn’t entirely been flushed out of my system.

‘He’s old enough, Linz,’ she reassured me. ‘Eighteen. Just three years younger than us.’

We walked out of her mum’s front door towards a blue sports car waiting for us. I was trying to keep an open mind, but there was a skinny blond lad resting himself against the driver’s door, smoking. I hated smoking. Absolutely hated it. ‘All right girls?’ he said as we walked over, casually flicking his fag butt away and breathing smoke in our faces.

‘This is my mate, Lindsey,’ said Nicky as we climbed in. Looking back, maybe there should have been a bolt of lightning or a peal of thunder. My future was starting there, that rainy night in Leeds. The reality was that I barely batted an eyelid. I just got in the back, and said ‘Hiya’.

As we drove off, I noticed him having a sly look at me in his rear-view mirror. Actually, when I looked back at him I realized that he was quite good-looking. We caught each other’s eyes in the mirror, noticed each other having a sly look, and he gave me a cheeky smile. I flushed a bit with embarrassment and looked out of the window.

‘So, Lindsey,’ he said – and at that moment I swear I could hear him smiling – ‘Nicky tells me you’re in beauty as well?’ ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I told him. ‘What is it you do for a living?’ He said he was a snooker player. What a ridiculous answer! ‘Snooker?’ I said to him. ‘That’s not a job, that’s a hobby!’ Actually, I knew already what he did as Nicky had told me, but I didn’t want him to think I was bowled over by meeting him – her family all thought he was the bee’s knees, but there was something about his cheeky confidence that made me want him to work a bit harder to impress me. He wasn’t really on my radar, he’d barely registered, and I certainly didn’t want to come across like an adoring fan. I didn’t know anything about snooker anyway, and he seemed too young, too full of himself, too daft if he thought that hitting little balls into pockets with a stick was a real job. I had to stop myself giving him a lecture about setting up a pension early, but as I looked at him in the mirror again I saw that he was still smiling. He gave me a wink, a shrug, and got back to concentrating on the road – after he’d copped another look.

Paul dropped us off at the door of a new club that had just opened and went to park his car. It was loud and hot when we went in, but Nicky immediately spotted the rest of her crew and we went over to sit with them. We got some drinks and had a quick dance, and by the time we got back to the table, Paul was there. ‘Lindsey!’ he called, jokingly, ‘I’ve missed you being so nice to me! Now I’m back, how about you give me a smile?’ An 18-year-old like Paul Hunter just seemed like a kid to me, but I couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was – for a kid.

My ex-boyfriend Dave was about my age, and I’d already decided that my next boyfriend would be older, very sensible, and probably somebody I could settle down with permanently. I wanted a stable relationship because that was what I’d grown up with. Although I enjoyed my nights out with Nicky – enjoyed them a lot – I still thought I’d be happiest sitting on the sofa, eating crisps and watching Saturday night telly. I wanted a boyfriend who would just as happily sit beside me rather than want to go out clubbing.

I had a great time that night. Nicky and I – and everyone else – got completely drunk and I almost forgot that I was dressed in a see-through top. I only remembered every time I caught Paul looking at me. Let him, I thought. He was just a lad, and he was the cousin of my best friend.

I left the club before him. Later that night, back home, I was a bit surprised when I found myself thinking about him. His smile kept popping into my head, and I realized that I was smiling myself when I pictured it.

I told myself it was the drink, tried not to worry about whether he’d driven himself home after all the vodka he’d packed away, and turned off my light.

My first night with Paul Hunter – and I hadn’t a clue where it would all lead …