The last time

The last time

It was the loud, violent knocking on the bedroom window that shook Ann from her deep sleep. It had been another long hot day, so shortly after putting the children down and a quick clean up, she had crawled into bed.

It had been almost a year since the violence had reached its peak, That one final blow took a beautiful and petite bulgarian surgeon three hours to fix. With each nostral stuffed with almost a meter of dressing to keep the bones in place, she arrived back home numb. It took a few days before her emotions emerged from their protective cacoon, which was keeping her oblivious to reality. Finally she was forced to confront the terrifying truth that her complicated, multi facseted world had suddenly become dark and dangerous. The simple truth was if she stayed any longer, she might not make it next time, and where would that leave the kids. No longer having the luxuary of a choice she found the courage and inner strength to propell her, and before she knew it she was free from the murderous clutches of her abusive husband.

She was only now starting to find her feet after making that first step onto a plane and out of his benevolent clutches. She had to learn quickly how to live in a world that she had never dealt with, and found herself swept up in a current of change that brought her closer each day to finding a safe place for herself, her five year old daughter Pauline, and two year old son Michael.

That evening the house had been stuffy after another scorching summers day, So she had left her bedroom windows slightly open to let the cool air which was infused with the fragrant scent of Bougainvillea fill the air.

It was three thirty when he drove up her drive, parked infront of the cottage and bellowed through the window.

“Ann, Ann, are you awake”.

Although she had been in a deep sleep, she woke quickly and realised that Peter was outside her window. The old memories flooded back to the times he used to come home around this time, and start screaming at her, kicking her and throwing her around the room. She immediately recognised his drunk and emotional behaviour, and that old familar fear began pounding in her chest. As adrenaline rushed through her body, her muscles tensed and her breathing quietened. It was a fear she thought she would never again have to feel.

Paralysed she lay there hoping that if she ignored him, he would have the sense to leave, maybe he would realize that this was no longer his dominion and could no longer play his game. She lay frozen, gripping her pillow, with her eyes wide open, silently sucking in quiet shallow breaths of air.

“I want to talk to you, you know I….Ann let me in”

She knew that it was futile to entertained the thought that he would just go away; he would never go away that easily and she began to worry that Michael and Pauline would wake up and wonder what was going on. She didn’t want the children seeing their father drunk again.

Rapping her gown around her, she crossed the dark room to the window. Opening the curtain she peered through the window at the man she had left 10 months earlier. He had clearly had far too much to drink and as she put her face closer to the window she could smell his drunken stench through the half-open window.

“Peter, it’s late, let’s talk in the morning”,
“No, now, I need to talk to you now”,
“You have had to much to drink, I will not speak to you now, I will talk to you in the morning – ok!” She whispered as she pretended to be in control of her emotions.

She walked back to the warmth of her duvet, burying her face deep into the pillows where she hopped to find safety. Praying he would just leave, she waited in the silence; listening she only heard the beat of her own heart and the gentle snore of her children in the adjacent room.

It felt like hours before she heard him walk away, climb back over her small wire fence and open the door to his wrecked Datsun Colt. She held her breath and suspiciously waited for the engine to start.

Good riddens you asshole, please just get the fuck out of here, I have nothing to say to you, and if you think I’m mad enough to want to listen to anything you have to say right now, Asshole….

Her head shot out from beneath the pillows when she heard the car door swing open and him hop the fence towards the cottage. She knew instantly that he was coming back for her, he was not going to put up with her serdition. He wanted to be heard, and he would.

The bitch has no right to ignore me like this, who the hell does she think she is. I’ll make her sit and fucking listen to me and I’ll take her down if that’s what it takes, how dare she.

She sat up, bracing herself for what was to come, and then she heard the glass shatter. The curtain moved in slow motion and she realised he was opening the windown she had just shut. He was coming in, and she was caught on the other side of the room up against the wall. The only way out for her was straight towards him and through the archway into the children’s room.

Adrenaline rushed through her body levitating her from the bed, and within seconds she had grabbed her cell phone and mobile panic button, and was running towards him, darting left past the window into the next room.

He was still trying to get in as Michael stared at his mother with big, frightened eyes, “Daddy”.

“Oh! fuck, I’m bleeding, you bitch, let me in”. “You fucking cold bitch, why don’t you want to let me in. I’m coming in”.

She snatched Michael from his bed and yanked Pauline by her arm as she ran with them through the playroom and kitchen and into the bathroom, where she bolted the door behind her. This was the only room where she would be safe - the burglar bars were attached to the window frame not the window.

“What’s happening Mummy”, Pauline asked as she sat in her pink nightie on the toilet seat rubbing her eyes. Michael just stood in the middle of the large bathroom, starring at his mother frightened and confused.

“Don’t worry it’ll be ok”, she spoke calmly to her children as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror on the wall. Her eyes where dark and dilated, she was shocked at how frightened she looked. She had pushed the panic button on her car keys before locking herself in the bathroom, and she paced around on the brown thinning carpet waiting for the sound of a car.

“Ann, I’m bleeding, help me, Ann…just get me a towel for fuck sakes so I can rap it around my arm…Ann, this is bad, I’m bleeding fucking everywhere.”

She turned her head so her ear could make out the sounds from beyond the door. She wasn’t sure if he was lying, but his pleas became more needy and his voice became quieter and quieter.

If she opened that door and he was on the other side; hurt, he would take her down with him. He wouldn’t die alone, he would take her with him.

“Mummy, what’s going on, I’m tired, is Daddy here?”

“Shoo, quiet I’m trying to listen”, why wasn’t the security company here yet, I felt like a quarter of an hour had passed already and if he was really in trouble he could die out there. But she couldn’t open the door, he had already tried to kill her when they where living together. When there was an illusory bond of love, respect and trust between them. Now that they were separated his contempt was unpredictable and he was capable of anything. There had never been a line that he had not crossed, killing her was the final boundary.

She picked up her cell phone to phone the security company, “Hello, this is Ann, at 56 3rd Road, I pushed my panic button twenty minutes ago, why isn’t anyone here yet”.

“Hold on I’ll quickly look into the system…umm, it seems that a call was put through to Mr. Linde and he told us everything is alright, a false alarm.”

“No, no that’s my landlord, I’m in the cottage, my ex husband has broken the window trying to get in and has cut his arm, I think its quiet serious, please get some one over here right now.”

“Mummy, what’s wrong with Daddy”, Pauline looked at her with trepidation in her baby blue eyes.
“It’s all right Pauline, Daddy will be fine, just lie down. Why don’t the two of you lie down on the carpet, I’ll make a little bed for you”.

She took all the towels out of the linen cupboard, and started spreading them around to make a soft bed as she strained to listen to the sounds coming from beyond the door.

Again she placed her ear against the door, “shoo guys, quiet, I’m trying to hear”, there were just quiet groans and mumbles. She knew he was still angry and even though he didn’t have the strength he was still cursing her, calling her names and complaining.

She desperately wanted to open the door and see if he was all right, help him if he was in trouble, but everything inside her screamed at her not too. If he were fooling around he would catch her and hurt her. She already knew what it meant to be on the other side of his brutality, having on many occasions felt the wrath of his rage.

Right now he hated her for rejecting him, for ignoring him, she would never get away with it, not unless he was too weak to hurt her, but how could she be sure.

Panic welled up within her as she held the latch to the door and started pulling it back. Suddenly she heard him, she couldn’t make out what he was saying but the voice sounded stronger and more determined. She let go and started pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom door, the raw light from the bear lamp staring down in judgement at her. Pauline and Michael lying on the heap of towels next the bath stared up at her desperately searching for answers.

As she walked back to the door, she thought she could hear a different set of voices. Unsure she strained to listen for a few minutes. Relief washed over her as she slowly began to realize that someone else might be there. Nobody would die tonight. They would take him away, make sure he was alright and leave her alone to find the strength to conjure up some kind of temporary sanity. Hesitantly, she pried the latch open, making sure that it slid back silently, and slowly opened the door.

“Stay here”, she said, as she looked back over her shoulder at her two children lying terrified and confused in a huddle on the heap of towels. She could hear the voices more clearly now, they were arguing.

“Leave ma the fuck alone, ya wanna hit me, come on, come on then hit me.”

She had reached the window in the play room that looked out over her patio to the wire gate in front of her cottage on which Peter was leaning. He was slouched to one side waving an arm around wildly at the two security guards in front of him, the other arm was clutched tightly to his chest. She watched how he fell over on to his side, curled up into the fetal position and began to retch and spew the life out of his body.

“Is Daddy dying”, Pauline looked up at her with terror in her eyes. She was so preoccupied with what was happening outside that she hadn’t even noticed that the children had come out of the bathroom and were standing next to her. Pauline wild eyed and angry, Michael dazed and confused.

“Come away guy’s, I don’t want you seeing this, please just go sit on your beds, everything will be fine.” She whispered to them as she pulled them away from the windowsill and waved towards their bedroom.

He was dying why didn’t they move him away, get him help instead of looking down on him at his humiliating feeble attempt to hold on to any form of pride. She watched as he lay there, the life seeping out of his strong arrogant body, and felt his weakness for the first time.

He rolled his head around and looked at her, instinctively knowing that she was standing on the other side of the window watching him. “Ann…help me Ann….I need you, please come here….Ann”.

Through all the years of terror, shame and humiliation there had also been love for this man. She had tried on so many occasions to understand why he needed to behave in this way, tried to help him find his way through it. As he lay there feeble and scared her heart yearned to go to him, to hold him as his once vital, strong, muscular body faded away. His plea for help screamed through her as she stood still behind the window silently watching him.

He is going to bloody die out there at the end of my patio, the bastard, why couldn’t he have found somewhere else to go do it. Why here, why in front of me and the children. Is this his last legacy to us. Is this his final declaration of love, is this what we are supposed to live with. You bastard, how can you do this to me.

“Mummy, Daddy is calling you, why don’t you go and help him, do you want him to die.”

“Those men are there Pauline, they’ll help him, I’m sure that they have called an ambulance, it will be all right, I’m not going out there now, so please go back to bed.”

Somewhere deep inside she knew that if she had to open that front door and walk outside he would never stop harassing her. If she gave in to her fear and anger and guilt and went to him, he would know she still loved him and would hound her another night. She could not let him know how it hurt her to see him so frail and desperate, it would become just another weapon to use against her, another way of emotionally blackmailing her into submission.

Her feet dug into the carpet and her fingers gripped the windowsill, as she stood very still starring out at him. Too afraid to move a muscle or say a word incase her resolve left her and she stepped into his ultimate control drama. She looked down at the terror on her children’s faces and saw how they looked at her with hatred, disgust and disbelief, as their mother did nothing. The guilt ripped through her like a blunt knife, she knew she could never give them a good enough reason for her indifference, without explaining the truth, and that she couldn’t do. They had seen enough tonight without knowing all the rest. She never wanted them to feel the shame. She thought she could hide it from them forever. That’s why she left, so they wouldn’t grow up seeing and knowing this kind of violent manipulation.

But again there it was – the horror, the horror she had tried to protect them from, back again to haunt them. They finally carted him away in the ambulance, but before he left the children had to step between their fathers pools of blood to get to their grandmother’s car. Their father hanging onto the door in ripped jeans, his naked torso splattered with dry congealed blood.

It was over and she was left in the silence of a calm autumn day, quivering and gasping for air as the reality of past hours washed over her. She picked up the hose pipe and started hosing down the thick, sticky, black blobs of blood that plastered the walls and tiles outside her home. Her stomach not strong enough to deal with the sight and smell, lurched and wrenched as she added her vomit to the blood being slowly washed away.

The red water drained away into the lawn that day, but not the memory of the last of Peter’s eight year’s of abuse and destruction.