Ten things I couldn’t say to you

1. I’m starting to find other people attractive

When you found out about Sandra and kicked me out, we shacked up together. There wasn’t much else to do. We lived in a Holiday Inn trying not to be depressed about our circumstances or that life had turned out to be so much like Eastenders, trying not to acknowledge that the thrill we had got out of each other was the thrill of doing the wrong thing, of giving into desire. We had more sex than ever but it wasn’t the same. We never talked about it but we both knew. Bones can tell each other things that mouths can’t.

After a couple of weeks in room 68 Sandra sat me down, told me she was going back to her husband, that they were going to give it another go, that this had really meant something and she would miss me... I held her hand and kissed her softly but I knew it wasn’t true. She was just a woman who had looked more appealing than you once and I was just a man who’d reminded her she was attractive when she needed it most.

2. You’ve let yourself go

You put on weight after we were married. A lot of women do. I didn’t blame you, you’d had three kids and had never been one for exercise, your metabolism was slow. I didn’t even mind to be honest. You looked okay big but the real reason I didn’t mind was because I knew that this was my cue, this was my excuse.

You see, you didn’t feel attractive anymore. Even when I wanted to have sex with you, when I stroked and stroked your back desperate for you to roll over or climb on top of me, you were rigid as an ice pop. You couldn’t believe I still wanted to shag you with your new saggy, bulging body, and the truth was, in the end, I was glad, because underneath the hurt pride and disappointment was the thought that at least now I could have an affair. Because a lot of men have affairs. It’s something a lot of men do.

3. The babies haven’t brought us closer together

You became dull, Cath. A lot of mothers do. Our light hearted in-the-park dreams of having our own little family drained you of your fire. You became the thing you’d always feared: a baby factory, a cooer, a matron. Motherhood took you over completely, even your dreams. There was no room for me. You’d wake up sweating from nightmares: I dreamt Hannah was kidnapped from school... Nathan was being mauled by a tiger... Lucy got dragged out to sea...

And I’d hold you, my eyes still half closed from the just interrupted sleep of a man without problems, and I’d say, There, there baby, it’s okay. They’re all safe. We’re all safe. I’m here, I’ll look after you. All that protective male crap just came pouring out and I meant it, but if I’m honest, I just wanted to get back to sleep.
I knew that in the morning I’d get up, put my new suit on, eat the breakfast that you’d made for me and daydream about Sandra. Because by the time Hannah was a few months I’d already started up with her. Lucy, would be sitting on my knee, humming and eating a piece of toast and I’d be imagining turning Sandra over so her pale, taut arse stuck up in the air just for me.

And all the time, from the outside, I was a picture of goodness. People would have said: Terry? Oh yeah, his family are everything to him.
And they were. You are.

4. I think we’re in trouble

You used to kiss me as I left, keeping up your end of our joint effort to stay blind to the realities of our relationship. I’d feel mildly disgusted as your sticky marmite lips kissed my cheek; partly with you and partly with myself for making you that way, because I felt responsible. Me insisting that I wanted one more child. And one more. A trio! I used to say, one and a half each! And you’d smile, but you’d be less light hearted than me because you still had the gristly scars from the last birth all over your body.

Then one day our act collapsed. You got a phone call. A young man’s voice saying, “your husband, Terry Beckett, is having an affair. Ask him who Cassandra Worthy is or ring 07968 395716.”

Then the phone went dead. Beeeeeep. You did the beep when you told me, do you remember, Cath? That’s what you said word for word. “Then the phone went dead. Beeeeeep.” And I looked at you, eyes wild in a face blank like a digestive and I thought you’d gone mad. For a minute I thought you were never going to stop with the monotone of that beep and then you stopped and I realised that only a second had passed and maybe it was me that was mad because what was I going to do now and was I going to be able to see the kids and who was Sandra to me anyway?

Because I knew what I’d lost straight away. I could tell by the way you looked at me that was it. Your whole face had changed. After the crying and shouting your eyes were just blank, our history gone just like that.

5. I can’t stop thinking horrific things

I‘ve always had bad thoughts. Underneath my actions has always been a mess of hate and violence, I’d just never acted it out before. When I was a teenager I used to have an elderly friend, I knew her from the bakery where I did my apprenticeship. She came in every day for fresh bread, and I started going round to see her sometimes because it was obvious she was lonely. A nice thing to do. But the thing was, what I remember now was, even as I sat across from her I would wonder where she kept her cash. While she boiled the kettle and laid custard creams on a plate I’d imagine scenarios where I found her pin number and stole her bank card, or tied her up and nicked all her petty cash. I didn’t want to but the pictures just kept coming. I used to wonder if there was something wrong with me because I so could easily think these things at the same time as I smiled and dunked another biscuit.

Because even when my intentions and my actions were good my thoughts couldn’t match up. They’d roam off and have their own orgy of evil as I went about my day. And recently, with the way things have turned out, I’ve started to wonder, which bit was the real me?

6. I think we might need to see somebody

After I’d gone you started getting your life back. You got a job two days a week in a family solicitors, joined a gym and lost all the weight, but you weren’t the same. My mum kept me informed about it all, you know, thinking it was my fault we hadn’t made up. She tried to goad me into wanting you back not realising how I already ached for it, or how many times you’d shut the door on me in my best suit. She’d tell me off for being drunk too after she’d delivered the latest blow, tell me I’d never be allowed to look after the kids at this rate, and I’d put the phone down and drink even more. It was more than I could take. It was Mum that told me about Ravi, that you’d started seeing your boss. She was just trying to get us back together, bless her, she didn’t know what it’d do to me.

I couldn’t bear him getting close to you, the two of you falling in love. You were still mine Cath! I couldn’t bear him living with our kids. I sat up at night thinking of ways I could stop it without killing him but there weren’t any. You wouldn’t talk to me or let me near the kids while I was acting like I was and I was holed up in that Holiday Inn all the time... My imagination was out of control, coming up with ways to stop him getting any closer, ways of talking to you and after a while they didn’t seem so farfetched.

7. You’re not listening to me

I’m sorry Cath, you probably don’t want to read this bit, but I need to write it. My therapist says it’s good to get it all out and anyway you’ve probably not read this far. These words are probably ripped right through or a pile of ashes by now. I probably don’t need to worry.
That night, I knew the kids were out because it was my mum that was looking after them and I knew that he’d taken you to the theatre because it was my mum that’d told me. She’d given me the usual phone call but this time I hadn’t turned to drink.

And so, I let myself in. I sat down by the bed our three children were conceived in and waited, knife in my pocket, rope in my hand, until I heard a taxi pull up outside. I heard your voice growing louder as you struggled to find your keys, the telltale sound of too much drink as you missed and missed the keyhole, then his laugh, low, as you walked inside.

I got up, thinking there’s no way out now, Tex, calling myself by your old nickname for me, thinking you’ve just got to get on with it mate. And so I began. I knocked the bedside lamp over and trod heavily to the door, waited behind it. Your voices stopped downstairs and I felt you freeze like I was freezing, felt the truth travel through my skeleton that the bad thing I‘d always been ready for was about to happen.

Ravi crept up the stairs as I waited behind the door with the base of a lampshade in my hands. He walked as lightly as a six foot man can walk across a landing and then stood outside the door, listening. My heart slammed against the cavity of my chest but my hand, ready with the lamp in it, was steady, and when he pushed the door open, testing, I stayed where I was, waiting for the seconds to pass until he would cross the threshold completely and I could hit him on the temple with the lamp. It was like clockwork, Cath. Three seconds and he was in and I’d hit him so fast he didn’t have a chance to use the rolling pin he was gripping. The thump of him falling to the ground must have terrified you Cath. I think about that now but then I just thought I can’t have much time left, I’d better get on with it. I picked him up, dumped him on a chair and wound the rope around his chest and ankles then I climbed out the window and over Abe and Shelly’s hedge.

It seems crazy now, especially with what happened next, but I wasn’t myself Cathy. What I said in court was true, I was a mad man. It’s hard to know what I was thinking. I just wanted to talk to you without you using the kids as an excuse. It made perfect sense at the time.

8. We really need to talk

You were on the drive, routing through your bag trying to find your mobile when I wandered up.
“Cathy!” I said, putting on a slur even though I was stone cold sober. “I’ve got to talk to you...”

“Oh god Terry, there’s someone in the house, I think they’ve hurt Ravi. There’s someone in there now and I can’t find my phone...”

You were so frightened that you didn’t even tell me to go away. I walked past you, straight in the door that was still wide open and upstairs. You followed a few steps behind, not wanting to be left by yourself when there was a maniac on the loose and I could hear your breathing, more like panting, ragged and hysterical and I thought of you red faced and sweating as you gave birth to our first child, the way you fixed your eyes on me like I was the only thing worth focusing on in the world. I slowed down because I was just starting to be afraid of what I’d done, what you were going to do when you worked it out, and you thought I was uncertain.

“He’s upstairs, Terry, in my bedroom.”

Our bedroom, I thought, but I didn’t say that. I still thought there’d be time for all that later on.

Things were getting hazy now you were there. I’d lost sight of the plan. I wondered if I couldn’t just stage a rescue, untie him, phone the police even, but I didn’t know if Ravi’d seen me when I hit him, and everything was happening so quick.

Then you saw that he was tied up, unconscious, that the window was open and you gasped, and then you turned to look at me, and I saw you wondering what the hell I was doing there anyway.

9. I still love you. I want us to make this work

“I just wanted to talk to you, Cath.”

You looked back and forth like an animal trying to understand.

“Something’s got to give, you see...”

I sounded calm but Ravi was coming round and I had a horrible feeling he was going to ruin everything. I couldn’t remember what I’d planned to do, I just wanted to explain, but blood was running down one side of his head, making everything seem worse than it was and I could see you waking up, that long-cold fire was making its way back to burning point and I was so happy to see it again but I needed to think of something quick before you exploded.

“Heads bleed a lot, Cath, don’t worry, it’s because the skin’s so thin there, remember when Harry cut his head open? There was loads of blood and he was fine...”

“What the fuck Terry! Get him off that chair now. Abe and Shelly will be able to hear this, they’ll be round here any minute...”

“I always loved you Cath. I made a mistake, but it was always you...”

“Get him OUT of that chair!”

Ravi groaned and my stomach sank at the thought of this moment being over, now, when you’d just got your fire back, when we were just starting to talk. I couldn’t bear the idea of his voice joining in and before he opened his eyes, before I had time to think of it, I walked over and stuck my fingers in his slack mouth. I grabbed at the slippery muscle in there and I cut, thinking that will keep him quiet for a while, alive but quiet. Then you shrieked and I couldn’t remember what I had wanted to say to you. Blood was bubbling out of the wound in his mouth, pouring down his chin onto his white shirt.

10. I’m sorry

You were on the phone to the police and the ambulance by now, getting everyone here as soon as they could and I finally realised I’d long missed the moment when we could talk things through. I sat down on our bed.

And looking back at it written down like this I realise that this is it, the proof, at last, that I was not a good man, that I had been capable of terrible things all along. Were all the good things undone in that moment, Cathy?

You knelt in front of Ravi, trying to hold his lolling head forward so he wouldn’t swallow all that blood at the same time as you tried to undo the rope that trapped him.

“Use the knife,” I kept saying from the bed, but you were crying too much to hear me. “Use the knife, Cath.”

I lay down on our old bed, the pillow soft against my head and smelling of you and I wondered if I could fall asleep. I imagined myself looking all gentle and infantile, snoozing as the police burst in, and I closed my eyes and waited.