I had certainly not put any pressure on him to be anything other than what he was. Ash drove his own extraordinary ambitions. He talked incessantly about how his father had left his mother years earlier and how it had become his duty to care for her. It was an attitude I found admirable. After all, I had spent most of my life doing the same thing for my own parents. Apart from the revelation about his father, I knew little about his background, other than that he had been born in India and had spent part of his early life in London. He also had a sister who lived in Oxford. He said she was a businesswoman and I always got the impression that Ash was jealous of her success. It was as if he craved something that always seemed to be just out of his reach.
He had become the perpetual ‘student’, combining his day job with one educational course after another, none of which seemed to be leading to any career destination. Ash had already told me that he had gone to Oxford University and claimed to have a ‘number of degrees’ and ‘letters after his name’. I didn’t care one way or another. I loved him and, if it made him happy to strive for something more than he had, then so be it.
‘Mum’s given me money so we can get married,’ he said.
I felt as if cold water had been thrown on my face.
‘What?’ I said sharply.
‘I told her we were going to get married. She gave me money,’ he went on.
‘Why would you tell your mother you wanted to marry me – before you had even asked me?’ I said.
‘I knew you would want to marry me.’
I did love him, but the length of our relationship could be counted in weeks.
‘I’ve seen a dress for you,’ he said.
‘What? You’re choosing my wedding dress?’
‘It’s beautiful. White, long, with a lengthy train. It’s in a shop in Glassford Street. You’ll look beautiful.’
I was dumbstruck.
‘It’s awful soon,’ I said, trying to buy time. ‘I’m still living at home. There’s my mum and dad to think of. And I’ve only just met your mother. You haven’t even officially met mine, or my father, or my brothers and sisters.’
Ash took my hands. He looked into my eyes and said: ‘You love me?’
‘Yes,’ I said quietly.
‘Well then, why don’t we just get married and have a long and happy life together?’
‘Ash …’
He silenced me by placing a finger on my lips.
‘Just think, Giselle … We’ll have such beautiful babies.’
Chapter 4
Rings on Our Fingers
‘If they were ever to break away, it would have to be now – it would soon be too late.’
Ian Stephen
June: I was so desperate to be loved.
I slipped the ring onto my finger and held it up to the light. The blue sapphires gleamed. They were surrounded by a circle of glittering, ice-white diamonds that appeared to have been planted in black velvet. I was mesmerised. I had never seen anything so beautiful.
‘Is that the one you want, then?’ Rab said. His voice was weary.
The well-dressed young jeweller, with his beautifully manicured hands, was making Rab feel uncomfortable. Rab probably assumed the man was gay because of his appearance and the manner in which he had been fussing around me since we entered H. Samuel in Glasgow’s Argyle Arcade.
The Victorian arcade of jewellery shops is a mecca for courting couples. Rab had planted his big workman’s hands on the gleaming glass counter but he withdrew them quickly when the young man rested his own delicate fingers next to his. I could read Rab like a book. He was fed up. We had traipsed the length of the arcade, lingering at every brightly lit casement window as I searched for the ring. I had now found it.
‘It is lovely, isn’t it?’ the jeweller said. ‘And it fits perfectly.’
‘Is that the one you want, then?’ Rab repeated.
I wanted to savour the moment. Rab was behind me but I could feel the heat of his simmering irritation. He’d had enough.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Give her it, then,’ Rab said brusquely, pulling a wad of notes from his trouser pocket.
‘Do you want to keep it on your finger?’ the jeweller asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want to take it off.’
I could hear the child in my voice.
‘I’ll get you the box,’ the jeweller said, delving into a cabinet behind him and locating a navy-blue leather box decorated with gilt scroll.
Rab laid down £98 on the glass counter. The price of happiness. I looked at my ring and pledged no one would ever take it from me. For some reason, I remembered the stereo record player from my teens, the most special gift my father had ever given me. I now felt the same about the ring. Like that stereo, this was something just for me. I would never take it off. It was Valentine’s Day, 1981, and £98 was a lot of money. Rab had worked many 12-hour shifts to pay for it.
He must really love me to give me something so special, I thought.
I leaned towards Rab and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He recoiled, embarrassed by my public show of affection. The tip of my nose brushed his jaw line and I felt a twinge. The swelling on the bridge of my nose had gone down in the last few days, but vestiges of pain remained.
I know this is the moment when everyone asks the same question. Why, in the name of God, would any woman in her right mind pledge herself to a man who had struck her just two weeks earlier?
How can I explain?
The truth is that I can’t. I cannot offer any rational explanation. From where I stand today it was, of course, monstrously crazy. But who among us can look back over the course of our lives and not find episodes that provoke the question ‘What in the hell was I thinking?’ ?
I should have walked away when I had the chance. In fact, I should have fled. But I did not. Why? It may seem trite and too easy to blame our childhoods, to look for excuses in our past. But …
What we become is governed by who we were. When I sat on Rab’s bed, nursing my bruised face, I had been incapable of rational thought. Don’t ask me why, but the pain of Rab’s assault dissipated the moment he said, ‘Let’s get engaged!’
It would be many years before I recognised that the reason I hadn’t fled was because I was so desperate to belong, so in need of being loved and so desirous of being wanted. I didn’t flee. I stayed. I made the mistake so many abused women have made before me, and no doubt there are – and will continue to be – many more caught in the same trap.
However, on that day, in that shop, the engagement ring was so much more than a piece of fancy jewellery. It was a symbol of all of the things I craved. I had convinced myself that Rab hitting me was a sign of his love. His violent outburst was born of jealousy. He couldn’t be jealous if he didn’t love me, could he? And, of course, was it not my fault? I had provoked him by waving at the men. But that was obviously all a load of nonsense. His jealousy was a manifestation of controlling behaviour, just as tearing up my cat-suit had been. How could waving innocently to your workmates deserve a punch in the face? So, to everyone who has ever said to me, ‘You should have left him,’ I say to them, ‘You’re absolutely right.’ But I didn’t and I would pay a dreadful price.
Wisdom in hindsight is, after all, our only exact science.