England
May 1993
I’ve just arrived, having driven almost nine hours from one end of the country to the other and instead of the warm welcome I was expecting, I’m greeted by a dirty house, an unmade bed and an angry boyfriend.
“Why didn’t you wait for me Victoria?” Steve spits at me, the anger rattling in his voice as he peels my arms away from his neck after I’d leapt out of my car to greet him.
“I did. Well for a few moments anyway. But you weren’t there. And I thought I’d try and remember my own way to your house. Well, I mean, to our home,” I splutter in response, aggrieved at his anger and disappointment in me.
I was expecting him to be overwhelmed with excitement to see me. Or at least proud that I’d managed to drive myself all the way down here, but instead, any delight or excitement I’d felt on the long drive down, when I’d been picturing in my mind the images of the charmed life we would have together; us buying our first home and furnishing it in soft hues of cream and blue just like one of the homes you see in all those lifestyle magazines. Or an image of us on holiday together, chinking glasses as we curve up on our veranda watching the sunset in some exotic Far Eastern location. Or (dare I say) an image of us on our wedding day - I, a vision in white chiffon, and him smartly turned out in traditional morning suit standing in front of our nearest and dearest saying our solemn vows to each other, everyone packed into the pews of the quintessentially tiny English church of my local parish, the huge hats and wide shoulder pads of the congregation bumping up against each other as they all crane their necks to get the best view of us at the front declaring our undying love for each other. However, all these images and the warm fuzzy feelings that accompanied them have evaporated, as if in a puff of smoke when, instead of a warm hug I was greeted with anger and contempt. Why am I the one being made to feel bad? Surely, he’s the one that’s stuffed up. If anyone has a right to be angry, it’s me.
Doesn’t he appreciate I’ve just left behind my childhood home, a wake of family upset and parental disapproval from my mother and stepfather, going against their wishes in order to join him in Wiltshire and start a new job in Swindon on Monday? I shudder as I recall the recent memory of their cold stony faces, disappointment etched around their drooping eyes and downcast mouths when I’d told them of my plans.
“If you could just leave your key on the side before you go,” was my mother’s parting shot. Making no attempt to hide her disappointment at my decision to leave home and start a new life in the south of England.
I’ve actually only visited Steve’s house three times before now. Since we started dating we usually met at some geographical midpoint of the country, around Derby or South Yorkshire, either at a mutual friend’s get-together or shacking up in a B&B for the weekend. In hindsight, we’ve not been dating long enough to understand the realities of living together but then there are lots of examples of other people who’ve had whirlwind romances that have worked.
Steve trained in Business and Agriculture and has a look of Farmer Giles about him. The green cords and plaid shirts befitting of this stereotype. Six feet four inches, with a mop of curly brown slightly unkempt hair and deeply set puppy dog eyes, he’s nine years older than I and rather than being fun or exciting, he’s proved to be stable and perhaps a tad dull. He works as a Sales Manager for a national agricultural feed supply company based just outside Bath, so spends much of his time attending agricultural shows drumming up new customers or signing up new distributors. And although I wasn’t raised on a farm and I was never an outdoorsy kid, climbing trees and itching to be outside (I was always more at home in the safety of my own bedroom) I do enjoy the countryside immensely and go walking most weekends, having grown up in a small northern town with the countryside on my doorstep. Where possible I’ve accompanied Steve to some of the agricultural shows, wrapped up in a Barbour wax jacket, thick socks and my trusty Hunter wellies. Having always lived within touching distance of fresh air and greenery I’m not sure I’d be happy living in a big city with everyone living on top of each other, even if I don’t have a desire to live up to my knees in mud all of the time.
As I’ve only been to Steve’s house a couple of times before, the agreement was he would meet me at Junction 17 of the M4 motorway and we would drive in tandem back to his small terraced house in Chippenham in case I got lost. However, when I arrived at the meeting point at the agreed time, he wasn’t there and with no way to contact him, other than drive around until I found a phone box and leave a message on his answerphone at home, I decided to test my memory and successfully found my way to his house. Unbeknown to me, he was running errands, and obviously running late which delayed his arrival at the meeting point, just missing me. After waiting 45 minutes he thought he would double back to the house and that’s when he found me waiting outside.
As soon as I spied his car turning the corner at the bottom of the street, I felt the familiar flutter in my stomach. Excited at seeing him and to be taking this massive next step in our lives together. Like a child on Christmas Eve I jumped out of my car which was packed to the rafters with the entire contents of my life, jumped up onto him, and wrapped my legs around his waist, only for those feelings to be replaced by a dull ache in my gut as he offloaded his tirade of abuse.
I met Steve when a bunch of my old college mates and I hung out one weekend. It’s been eighteen months since we all left college and have returned home to the four corners of the country, reuniting as frequently as we can, to catch up and relive old memories. These weekends are important high points in my social life, which has petered out since leaving university. So I grab any opportunity to connect with old friends and get mixed up with our usual drunken frivolity. Steve’s mate is dating my friend, Vanessa, so although Steve and I had never met previously, he’d tagged along for the ride that particular weekend and was part of the general crowd.
I can’t say that I fancied him at first sight, but he seemed nice enough and was very interested in me, making an obvious play, and I was flattered. So, I kind of went along for the ride and six months later, here we are. He’s not my first boyfriend, but he is the first one who hasn’t cheated on me or done something equally hurtful, so right now ‘dull stability’ seems quite appealing.
I know we’ve only been dating for six months but attempting to develop our relationship long distance and only meeting up every other weekend meant it was going nowhere, so last month we talked about the possibility of moving in together to give ourselves a real chance. and everything since then has happened pretty quickly. I don’t know whether Steve is the one, more like the one right now but he’s nice enough and treats me well and after moving back home following university, taking my first tentative steps on the bottom of the career ladder by accepting a job locally for which I’m more than qualified. I’m ready to break away and start exploring wider horizons and Steve presented me with an opportunity to get my life started away from my home town. Time to become my own person, or so I had hoped, at least that’s what I’d written in my diary only a few days ago.
My first serious relationship was with another man who was also a good deal older, in fact ten years older, and I absolutely adored him. I loved been treated like a proper grown-up lady. He would take me to the races, to top-class restaurants, or the very best nightclubs which was much more appealing than just drinking in the local pub followed by a cinema trip which is the ‘norm’ for most people my age. I was still a virgin when I met him and being in my late teens, I was the last of my girlfriends to lose my virginity. As we had been dating for almost six months and he always treated me with respect, I had hoped to lose my virginity to him, believing he would take this very big personal step for me with the reverence and care it deserved. Despite all my inexperience he was the first man to make me feel special. And he was one helluva kisser! However, all my hopes were sadly dashed when I found out he had cheated on me.
One Saturday evening after dancing the night away at a top nightclub in Newcastle, we’d engineered the opportunity to stay together overnight, with the intention of sleeping together. However, I couldn’t understand why after months of intense kissing in the darkest corners of a club or uncomfortable fumblings in his car, why when the opportunity presented itself, he didn’t initiate taking things further. We’d intimated about this night for ages and he was the one who had orchestrated the perfect scenario for us to take our relationship to the next level, so why wasn’t he ripping my clothes off, smothering me with his passion? This was meant to be the moment I gave him my virginity. The moment we took things to a deeper level. The moment when we became more serious and solidified our relationship. An impossibility if he insisted on keeping his pants on! As the time ticked by, yet the evening failed to progress, eventually he owned up. Not to cheating, but for catching an STI from a recent business trip to New York. Confirming indirectly, in this case, that two and two, does in fact add up to four. A simple throwaway comment, as if he’d just caught a common cold from the recycled air on the aeroplane. However, the last time I checked, it’s physically impossible to catch a sexually transmitted infection from the flippin’ air con. In hindsight, at least he had the decency to tell me first before passing any infection onto me. That could have made losing my virginity very memorable for all the wrong reasons. On principle, I ended it immediately, even though I still felt deeply for him. Part of me wanted to let his indiscretion go.
If I wasn’t sleeping with him, was it completely unreasonable to expect a man with ten years more experience than I not to be sowing his oats elsewhere, I questioned myself, and my gut told me it was only the one night out with business colleagues whilst over in the US. It wasn’t as if he was two-timing me. He’d just slept with someone else. Is there ever a time a one-night stand is forgivable? Perhaps, perhaps not. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t made such a snap decision and been so determined to stand on principle.
After Mr STI, there were a couple of short relationships throughout the final years of university, but no one of substance or anything that lasted more than a few months, even if I had wanted to make it work. I was desperate to find ‘my other half’, to be part of a couple, or to find the person who would ‘complete me’. Being dumped, especially by the guys I fancied or wanted to be with, seemed to become a common inevitability. As soon as I showed interest in someone, or began to have feelings for them, they’d call it a day.
I eventually lost my virginity at the end of a summer romance, rolling around in the sand dunes of the Northumberland coast. He was a lovely guy, funny, good looking, great company and even though we only ever did it the once, as it turned out, a very caring lover. At least losing my virginity with him was a lovely experience. I really liked him and wanted to keep dating but after our shared summer together he allowed it to fizzle out when we returned to college in the autumn, leaving me bereft at the time.
There was of course that one time at university, when I allowed myself to get into a situation I couldn’t get out of and things went too far, but I prefer not to dwell on that episode, instead choosing to put it down to experience and to not be so naive in future. So after more than a couple of bad boys or short flings, where either I’d been treated poorly by those who appeared initially to want me, or I’d not had my advances reciprocated by those whom I was attracted to, when Steve appeared on the scene, although he didn’t have the flair of Mr STI, or the humour of Mr Summer Fling, he seemed nice enough. ‘I could do worse’ I had thought to myself at the time.
He does make me laugh with his childish humour and it’s clear he absolutely idolises me. He’s told me on more than one occasion that he thinks he’s punching way above his weight, or that he doesn’t deserve me. I’ve never been put on a pedestal before, (well not since Mr STI) and I have to admit that there’s a part of me that’s enjoying being made to feel this way. To feel that somehow I’m better than him, or that he should feel lucky to have me.
Once inside Steve’s small terraced house, I look around with despair. He hasn’t even bothered to do the dishes for what looks like a week, or put any clean bedlinen on the bed, let alone clear some space in the wardrobe for my clothes. The house smells. The bin is overflowing in the kitchen and I don’t think he’s opened a window, to let in any fresh air all week. I had put the bedlinen in the wash on the previous Sunday evening when I visited, which basically means he’s lived like a slob all week sleeping on the bare mattress.
How sloven, I think to myself.
The heaviness in my stomach builds throughout the evening until it feels like I’ve swallowed a weighty stone. I know I’ve made a mistake but as much as I want to turn my car around and drive back north I think about what my granny would say if she knew my inner thoughts. Granny Fenwick is an incredibly proud, stoic woman who would refuse to throw the towel in at the first hurdle.
“Victoria, you’ve made your bed, now you must lie in it.”
“Only after I’ve friggin’ made it first!” I answer back to my own internal dialogue.
After a very strong cup of tea and a deep breath in, I hold onto both my disappointment and anger and begin an almighty clean-up of the house. Looking round there isn’t a clean surface that isn’t covered in clutter or rubbish, or discarded coats, or linen waiting to be put away.
I couldn’t sit down even if I wanted to, I think to myself.
Dishing out directive instructions to Steve, I sound more like his mother than his supposed girlfriend. “Put this here. Take this upstairs. Put that away, whilst I clean up here.” The image I’d conjured up on my long drive down here of him surprising me with at least a bunch of welcoming flowers and a warm cuddle before snuggling up together to share a bottle of wine in front of a roaring fire on our first night living together, definitely did not include an image of me scrubbing his skid marks out of the toilet bowl 30 minutes after arriving!
It takes all my inner self-control to hold it together as it dawns on me how much of a corner I’ve backed myself into. How on earth could I face my family’s ‘we told you so’ comments if I crawled home with my tail between my legs? But losing my cool now and instigating a row with Steve, would achieve absolutely nothing and wouldn’t change the situation I’m now in. I decide there is no point looking backwards and instead I must stay focused and keep moving forwards. I must knuckle down and give it a go with Steve. On my wage I couldn’t afford to live on my own anyway and with no money behind me, unless I want to eat humble pie with my own family, I realise I don’t have much choice.
Finally crashing into bed long after midnight, absolutely exhausted after my eight-hour drive, followed by hours of unexpected cleaning, I watch Steve’s chest rising and falling with the rhythm of his sleep, listening to his gentle snoring as he sleeps peacefully. Lying next to him now I try and remember all of the good things about him and the fun moments we’ve had over the past few months.
“He’s not that bad,” I think to myself attempting to justify both my decision to move in with him and the decision to stay and give it a go. I know this is not how I expected my life to turn out, but life isn’t a fairy-tale is it, and unbeknown to me, my life is about to take a preordained curve when I start my new job on Monday.
I decide wasting energy wishing for a Happy Ever After isn’t going to change anything, so for tonight at least, I roll onto my side, facing away from Steve and close my eyes before falling, exhausted, into a deep and dreamless sleep.