Читать книгу Who Are You?: Part 2 of 3: With one click she found her perfect man. And he found his perfect victim. A true story of the ultimate deception. - Megan Henley - Страница 6

July 2010–January 2011

We were also planning to move house. The place we’d found in Horsham was much nicer than the cottage, which held so many bad memories for me, and I hoped it would be a fresh start. There were four bedrooms, which meant we could keep our current arrangement of separate rooms, which seemed important to Vic. The only problem was that the move ended up being very close to my due date. Luckily, in some ways, my little girl decided to arrive early.

As I was packing up the old house, the contractions started. I’d been here before, so I decided to just keep going with boxing things up and go to hospital as late as possible. I had a doula ready on speed dial to meet me there, and was hoping for as little intervention as possible. I was so worried that Vic might have an episode when I went into labour, which was why I had engaged a doula in the first place; I needed someone I could rely on. Life had been so crazy, but I desperately wanted this little one to come out into peace and calm.

Ruby was with her dad. I held on for as long as I could, and then, with the contractions mounting, Vic drove me to hospital. He was chatty on the way there, playing me music that he’d been working on and trying to help with my breathing. However, as soon as we were shown into the labour room, he changed. We were met by Magda, the doula, and he disappeared almost immediately.

‘Where are you going?’ I shouted as he headed out of the door.

‘Need to move the car!’ he replied. ‘Don’t want a ticket.’

This went on all through the labour. He seemed obsessed with moving the car to avoid a traffic warden seeing it, and ignored my perfectly sensible advice to ‘JUST PAY FOR A BLOODY SPACE!!’ A pregnant woman in the last throes of labour is perhaps not the most reasonable person in the world, but I did feel that he was being absolutely ridiculous. Thankfully, I had Magda with me and she was more help than Vic could ever have been. The contractions were coming quickly, and agonisingly, and the last thing I could be bothered with was Vic’s odd ways. I clung on to Magda and promised myself that I would NEVER be doing this again. Finally, it was over – one last push, one last scream and there she was.

My little girl.

My Lily.

She was stunning. All dark hair and big lungs. Vic was there for it, for the most important part, and he was in tears when she arrived. I knew that he must be thinking of Zack – and probably Dina and Logan too. He had previously said to me that he wouldn’t have a minute’s peace until the baby got past the age of Zack, but I kept reassuring him that I was very different to Zack’s mother and no one would put my children in danger, least of all me.

We spent that night in hospital, just the three of us, closed off from the world. I was able to tell myself that once we got home – to our new house – we could press a reset button and be all the things I desperately wanted us to be. I sang to Lily, I bathed her, I cuddled her and kissed her but, from the start, she was a handful. She was extremely fractious and unsettled as a baby, and, as I was breastfeeding, there wasn’t much Vic could do during the nights. She would wake up at least once an hour (and this went on until she was eight months old). Vic was a doting dad; he clearly adored her and loved taking her for walks in the pram. I knew that he must be thinking about Zack and it must have been hard for him. Lily was an absolutely gorgeous child and I think that Vic – like all parents! – loved it when people commented on how beautiful she was.

Ruby turned out to be a brilliant big sister and I would often look at my two girls and think I was absolutely blessed. ‘You are my little wonders,’ I told them. ‘Nothing, nothing will ever harm you.’ I meant it – no matter what life threw at us, I would always be there for them.

I hoped that some time after Lily’s birth the physical side of my relationship with Vic would get back on track. He had chosen to sleep in a separate room ever since he first became acutely unwell with his mental health problems and, while I tried to understand this, I wondered why it was still the case. His experiences with the voices seemed few and far between, but he continued to have no interest in any sort of physical contact with me. I attributed it to the fact that I had put on weight while I was pregnant, but I was extremely hurt that he would not even give me a cuddle if I asked him to. Any time that I tried to broach this subject or initiate any intimacy, the result wasn’t good.

‘Why are you always on about sex?’ he’d ask, even although that was far from the truth. ‘My head is in a complete fucking mess with thinking about Zack and Dina and Logan and all you can think about is whether you can get me in your knickers. Get a fucking grip, will you?’ He made me feel really bad for even bringing it up and didn’t seem to grasp that sex was a normal part of a healthy adult relationship. ‘You’re not helping anything, Megan,’ he would say. ‘You have no idea how many things I’m dealing with right now. I protect you from so much, and all you can think of is how to stress me out asking for sex. It’s fucking ridiculous, it really is.’

‘So, tell me, Vic, talk to me,’ I suggested. ‘Don’t lock me out – if you have a lot on your plate, share it with me.’

‘You don’t need to know – remember how it was before? You want to know all that shit again?’

‘Your family? Christopher?’ I asked.

‘Your mental ex is NOT a problem any more,’ he shouted. ‘Have you forgotten that I dealt with that for you? Have you forgotten that I’m still paying off that fucking debt?’

‘What debt? What do you mean?’

‘People don’t just disappear with no consequences, Megan. Don’t be thick. I needed to call in favours, but the price was higher than I expected. And now …’ he gestured vaguely at Lily. ‘People are pissed off. Having a kid with a gorja? It doesn’t exactly make me Son of the Year.’

By the time Lily was three months old, the real problems began. As ever, Vic was very tight-lipped about what was happening, but Valerie was always happy to fill me in on details.

It’s getting so bad, she told me. I feel awful for that poor man. He has so many people making demands on him, and I’m terrified that it will push him over. He’s been so strong for so long. We only know the tip of the iceberg really, he keeps so much bottled up. I know he could never tell us everything as it would put us in danger but really – when you think of how bad the things we do know are, I wonder what else there is that he can’t even speak about? How is that beautiful baby of yours, you lucky thing?

Valerie changed the subject quickly but it made me think. I knew that I was just someone else making demands on Vic, and I knew I was lucky to have such a perfect little girl, but the fear was building again.

He’s been getting threatening messages from Jay once more, Valerie confirmed. He’s getting dragged in, Megan – it’s horrible stuff. His dad must be one of the nastiest men ever to walk this planet – I can hardly believe that Vic is his son. They are so twisted and Vic is fighting, fighting all the time for you and Lily.

That night, I had it out with Vic.

‘You need to tell me things, you need to share with me,’ I cried. ‘We have a baby together – you must know that I’m committed to you, so why not let me carry this burden as well?’

He looked defeated. ‘It’s too much, Megan. You don’t know what they’re like.’

‘Well, how can I? You tell me nothing and I don’t even see anything in the news about it. If they’re so lawless, why is it all kept quiet? Why is there such silence?’

‘It’s because they ARE fucking lawless!’ he said, in exasperation. Nothing was ever in the media, but, as Vic explained, that was because it was all gypsy-related. ‘No one cares what we do to each other,’ he said. ‘There’s such prejudice – but we can make the most of that; we can conduct our business without the bastards watching us all the time, that’s what they don’t seem to have cottoned on to. You want to know everything?’ he said. ‘You have no idea what you’re asking, no idea what you’re opening up, Megan … but, if that’s what you want.’