‘I don’t want to be here,’ I thought as soon as I walked in the door.
There was a guy sitting in the living room called Jason Mack, who was quite a bit older than me and ran a second-hand furniture shop on the corner of the street. I’d seen him around since I was about 10 years old, and I knew there had been a fire at his shop a few months earlier.
‘What happened?’ I asked him, just for something to say. My confidence was low, and I definitely wasn’t in a party mood.
‘I split up with my girlfriend and she tried to burn the shop down,’ Jason said.
‘My God, I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve had a horrible time too. I split up with my boyfriend not that long ago.’
We shared sob stories, smoked some weed and just chilled out together. I felt a connection to Jason, and that night I saw him as an equal for the first time, rather than the much older person I’d always viewed him as. I fancied him, actually. He had blond hair, blue eyes and nice teeth, and he told me he was 27. I was still only 16, but after my experience with Dave I definitely didn’t feel like an inexperienced young teenager, far from it.
At the end of the night Jason gave me a kiss and I felt a spark of life inside me for the first time in nine months, which was the length of time I’d been on my own after Dave.
‘Do you fancy going out tomorrow, just the two of us?’ Jason asked.
‘Why not?’ I replied. I actually smiled and felt excited, and when I went to bed that night the noises in my brain weren’t quite as loud, because I’d cleared a little bit of space in my head to think nice thoughts about Jason. Maybe my life was about to become happier. I felt like it was, and I surprised myself by actually feeling ready to be happy again.
3 ‘Open up now or we’ll take your kneecaps off’
‘I want Tweety Pie on me bum with “Warren” underneath,’ I told Tony as I lay face down on the couch in his tattoo parlour.
Gillian had had the baby, a gorgeous little boy, and her dad Tony was buzzing, like everybody else in the family.
I went through the whole labour by my sister’s side, though I can’t have been any use at all. I was still only 16 and didn’t have a clue about birth or babies. ‘Try this position,’ I said at one point, showing Gillian a poster on the wall. ‘That’s telling us what NOT to do, Cheryl,’ she yelled in agony and frustration.
When Warren was born it was the most mind-blowing, beautiful moment ever. It completely and utterly took my breath away and I felt incredibly close to my sister, and my new nephew.
‘I’ll help you look after him,’ I volunteered straight away. I just wanted to squeeze Warren and never let him go, he was that adorable.
We all wanted a tattoo to celebrate the new arrival. Tony had done my first tattoo, the tribal one on my lower back, and I wanted him to have the honour of doing this one too. He was so proud to be a granddad, and by the time it was my turn he’d spent all day inking the word ‘Warren’ onto the arms and backsides of about half a dozen relatives.
I’d got to know Tony quite well over the past five years or so, since the big bomb went off in the family and we found out about him. Once the initial shock had subsided, I went round to meet him and was absolutely gobsmacked. ‘He looks like our Andrew. He even walks like our Andrew!’ I said. ‘I can’t get over it!’
Right from that first day I viewed Tony more like another brother, rather than seeing him as Joe, Gillian and Andrew’s real dad.
I showed my new tattoo off proudly to Jason. We’d been seeing each other for a little while, and I was really into him.
‘I’m so happy with it,’ I told him. ‘You look it,’ he said, smiling and giving me a kiss.
By now I’d stopped taking the beta-blockers but I wasn’t completely better because I was still having panic attacks from time to time. I just couldn’t seem to shake them off, but whenever I was with Jason I felt happy. He’d take me for dinner or to the pictures. Other times we’d order takeaway pizzas or buy loads of sweets and crisps from the corner shop and sit in watching Corrie together at my mam’s. I was really enjoying working at the café on the Quayside, and I’d try out my cooking skills on Jason and make him scrambled eggs with melted cheese on top, or sausage and bacon sandwiches. I liked to spoil him, and on my days off I’d take the food into his shop at lunchtime.
Gillian was working in the café now too, and I looked after Warren for her on my days off. I’d learnt how to feed and change him and I absolutely loved him. ‘I want lots of children,’ I thought to myself. ‘And I want to have my kids young.’ Gillian was only 21, but that was seen as the perfect age to start your family, and I definitely wanted to start early too.
‘How’s the songwriting going?’ Jason asked me from time to time. He knew all about the singing and dancing I’d done over the years, and how I’d let everything slip after my last relationship. I’d started writing a few lyrics again but I didn’t have a plan about where I was going from there. I was just happy to be back on my feet after Dave, and I’d tell Jason, ‘It’s good. I love it,’ and we’d leave it at that.
Jason’s furniture business was thriving. He was doing a lot of house clearances as well as running the second-hand shop, and he had a good reputation in the trade. Locally, he was viewed as someone who was making a success of his life. My family didn’t like the fact Jason was 11 years older than me, but if anyone said anything I always reassured them I was fine. ‘I’ve got an old head on me shoulders,’ I’d say. ‘Jason understands me.’ They could see how much better I was, and they left me alone.
Andrew came out of prison around this time, which was another positive thing in my life. He’d served four years and I assumed being locked up would have taught him a lesson and that he would put his criminal past behind him. He’d been inside for most of his teenage years, and I hoped he’d start a great, new life.
My relationship with Jason progressed really quickly, and when I was 17 we moved into a flat together just over the road from my mam’s. It was that close, in fact, you could see into the kitchen from her front window. All Jason and I had to begin with was a second-hand kettle from his shop and a tiny black-and-white TV with a piece of wire sticking out the top, which you had to twist around to stop the picture from fuzzing. There was one bedroom and a bathroom you couldn’t turn around in, but it was ours.
‘What’s for tea tonight?’ Jason would ask when he went out to work in the morning, because he knew I liked to cook for him and was enjoying being a little homemaker.
‘I’m makin’ us chops with gravy and veg,’ I’d say excitedly. I was feeling stronger all the time, and I was looking a lot better and gaining a bit of weight. ‘Can’t wait,’ he’d wink. A look from him would make my heart jump. I felt alive, like a normal teenager. I was finally through the darkness.
One night I arranged to meet Jason at a friend’s flat not far from ours. We were all going to just chill out together, that’s what I thought. I took a bit of money in case we wanted to get a takeaway and I was looking forward to a relaxing evening, but when I walked in the flat my heart nearly stopped. Jason was standing there in front of me, but he looked like a total stranger. His jaw was swinging everywhere, he was talking absolute rubbish and his eyes looked black instead of blue, because his pupils were so big.
‘What’s he taken?’ I screamed. Jason was swaying in front of me with a crazed, aggressive look on his face and I started panicking like mad. ‘Tell me what he’s taken! Jason, what have you taken?’