The Woman He Loved Before Read online

  libby

  ‘I’m glad you’re back,’ Eve says from her place on the document box. ‘I missed you.’

  My eyes focus on her for a moment and I can tell she isn’t being snidey. She isn’t the snidey, bitchy type.

  ‘You were at that bit where I’d just met Elliot in the supermarket and I got a hundred-pound tip? Remember?’

  I nod at her. I can do nothing but remember nowadays.

  eve

  25th June 1990

  Have just had the best birthday.

  I knew things would get better, and they have. After the last two birthdays being ‘just another day’ x2 without so much as a card or phone call from my mother, I thought that this year I was going to do something different. I wasn’t going to sit at home, waiting and waiting for a card that probably wasn’t going to come.

  I’ve written loads to my mother, probably a letter a week, and I get nothing in return. I wish I could stop myself but she’s my mother – she was my mum – how can I just give up on her? She might have given up on me, but I can’t do it to her. I love her. Still.

  Yesterday, I did something that I’ve been ashamed to write about. I rang her. I picked up the phone and I rang her. Actually, I’ve been calling a lot but I hang up after the first or second ring because I’m too scared to speak and I wouldn’t know what to say. If I speak to her, I’d probably say I want to come home, but that place isn’t my home any more. I’m not her little Evie any more. And how could I go back when her boyfriend was probably still there? But yesterday I got the courage to stay on the phone after more than two rings. My heart was in my throat and I was shaking as I waited for it to be answered.

  ‘Hello?’ said a man’s voice.

  I started shaking even more – horrified that he was still there, and even more horrified that I hadn’t thrown the phone down rather than speak to him.

  ‘Hello?’ the man said again.

  ‘Who is it?’ my mother called from the background and I had to hold back a sob. I hadn’t heard her voice in so long, I hadn’t been connected to my mother in this way in a lifetime.

  ‘Don’t know, but they’re still there!’ the man called back. Into the phone, he said, ‘This is your last chance: hello?’

  Still clutching the handset, I closed my eyes and let the tears fall, holding my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t give myself away.

  ‘Here, let me have that,’ my mother said and suddenly she was there, as clear as day, speaking into the phone. ‘Hello, this is Iris Quennox, how may I help you?’ she said politely, obviously thinking that his phone manner was putting the person off.

  ‘I love you,’ I mouthed into the phone, speaking without words, wanting to be heard but too frightened of the consequences.

  ‘Hello?’ she repeated.

  ‘I think about you every day,’ I continued without speaking.

  ‘Eve?’ she said.

  ‘And I miss you. I miss you so much it hurts.’

  ‘Eve?’ the man said. ‘You think that’s Eve?’

  ‘No,’ my mother said, ‘but I can’t think of anyone else who would call without speaking.’

  ‘Bye,’ I said. ‘Bye, Mum.’ Then I hung up and spent the rest of the night crying.

  I’m ashamed because I should have spoken to her properly, I should have said something. Letters are easy, aren’t they? But at least now I know she’s well, she’s all right and that if he’s around still then she’s probably happy in her own way. And, maybe, one day she’ll want me back.

  Anyway, to avoid moping today, I decided to go to the seaside. I mean, how crazy is it that since I was young I’ve never once been to the seaside? On the way to the Tube station to get the train to Victoria, I bumped into Elliot again. Remember him? He worked at that company I should have got that job at all those years ago and I bumped into him in the supermarket a while back. He looked older and a bit more worn by life, but he seemed cuter than I remembered. Maybe because in those days I was so focused on getting a new job and didn’t really notice much of anything else. Or maybe it’s because I’ve seen the ugly side of human nature and anyone who is removed from that – who isn’t a bitch trying to harm me on the dancefloor or a man who is trying to get me to fuck him for free because he is that special – seems to be unique and rather lovely.

  ‘Gosh, Eve,’ he said, looking genuinely pleased to see me. ‘Can’t believe I haven’t seen you in all this time.’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ I replied. ‘Are you still at Hanch & Gliff?’

  ‘Yeah, for my sins. And you?’ he asked. ‘Did you find a job?’

  ‘Yup. I’m not sure it’s what I want to do for ever, but it’s a job.’ I shrugged. ‘It pays the bills, keeps a roof over my head.’

  ‘I know what you mean. I still haven’t worked out when exactly I decided that being an accountant was a good idea.’

  I, of course, knew exactly when I decided it’d be a good idea to become a lap dancer. That’s what I am, by the way. Looking back over these pages, I never had the guts to name what I do, but I am a lap dancer. Saying I’m a stripper implies that all I do is take my clothes off to titillate men, or that I take some pride in what I do, when in reality I get as close as I can to simulating sex because some man has handed over a couple of notes. Yes, some of the girls I work with still say they are in control because they get to turn a man on, they get to turn him down if he is repulsive or if he is rude to them. ‘True control,’ I always want to say, ‘is in being able to be proud of your job and not have to make excuses for how you’re seen.’ And, of course, what’s the point of thinking you’re in control when the man on the other end of the cash thinks he is?

  ‘Look, sorry, Elliot, but I’ve got a train to catch. It was nice seeing you.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘To Brighton. I fancy visiting the seaside.’

  ‘Could I come with you?’ he asked. ‘It’s my birthday and I’d love to have a reason to bunk off work.’

  I thought about it. It seemed to be Fate because we have the same birthday so I said yes, and we went. And we had the best day ever.

  We ate fish and chips, we walked on the beach, we put coins into the slot machines, we bought sticks of rock, we drank beer outside on the Pier and then at the end of the day we kissed each other’s faces off on the train platform.

  On the train, I fell asleep on his shoulder while he stroked his hand through my hair. That was the best part of the day, I think. I got to experience the touch of another human being and it was gentle and kind and loving without demanding anything I wasn’t willing to give.

  That’s where love starts, isn’t it?

  17th December 1990

  I’ve been seeing Elliot for almost six months now.

  My whole life has changed the most in the last three months. He’s moved in and he’s begged me to stop lap dancing. His job is good enough to support us both, so I don’t have to work. To be honest, while I’ve wanted nothing more than to give it all up, I didn’t feel right about it. I don’t like not being in command of my own destiny.

  But it was nice to have someone love me so much he didn’t want me doing those things, didn’t want other men staring at my body and salivating over it night after night. He didn’t condemn me and the choices I’d been forced to make, but it horrified him that I’d done it for so long. ‘But you’re so clever, how can you do that?’ he kept asking.

  And I had to keep telling him that taking your clothes off for money did not mean you were stupid or unintelligent. In some ways it was a sign that you were pretty shrewd because you knew that no matter how deep a recession the country was in, sex would always sell. Always.

  In the end, I could see the pain in his eyes, the sorrow that just the thought of what I did brought him and I knew I couldn’t do it to him any longer. I wished, actually, that I hadn’t told him. That I’d just said I served drinks behind the bar instead of doing that stupid Eve thing of being honest.

  So I gave it up an
d picked up bits and pieces of temping and cleaning – I was now more employable because I had massive holes in my CV that proved I had no aspirations that would tempt me away from a low-paid job. Every day, I see more and more that dancing for money is exactly like every other menial job, except with these other jobs I don’t have to take my clothes off. And that made cleaning and photocopying and answering phones and entering data far superior occupations. I just hated the loss of power, by which I mean, of course, the loss of money. The whole thing with my dress taught me that once you have money, you have power and people respect you. It might not be ideal, it might not be how it should be in a perfect world, but it is how it is in the world I live in.

  When I agreed to stop dancing, I asked, in return, that Elliot give up smoking weed and occasionally taking coke. But he replied that it wasn’t very often that he did it, especially the coke, and it’s better for him than going out and getting bladdered every night. Which is true, I suppose. I don’t like drugs, though. After what they did to Dawn, I don’t like being around them and I don’t like the idea of Elliot taking them. But he seems to have it under control and I have to trust him to know what he’s doing.

  So, here I am, back where I started but worse off, I suppose. I have money saved, but I pretend that is not there. I remember Aunt Mavis once told me to always have a running away fund. She said, no matter how much you loved a man, always have a stash of money that would get you as far away from him as possible in an emergency. As it turned out, the first time I had to use that money was to get away from my mother and her ‘boyfriend’. I have managed to put enough aside over the years to top it up again. That’s why I didn’t use that money for my dress. I needed to have enough money to get away if I had to.

  Why am I worse off? Because I have much less money I can freely spend – I have to ask Elliot for cash if I don’t get any work, and that makes me uneasy.

  But I can’t complain too much because I have someone who loves me. That’s something I couldn’t have fathomed happening when I first came to London and especially when I started dancing.

  I like the way I can write that down … I have someone who loves me. That makes me smile.

  Love,

  Me

  11th March 1991

  When will I learn? Pride comes before a fall. Always. I took too much pride in the nice life that we had and now, three months later, we’ve fallen.

  What has happened? Well, today Elliot, came home from work and told me that he’d been sacked. And it was all my fault. He didn’t say that, obviously, not until I dragged it out of him.

  Basically when I came in after the cleaning shift at the local gym he was already sitting on the sofa. The television was off, which is how I knew something was wrong, and he was just staring into space.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked him, not moving too far from the door because I had a feeling I would want to run out the second he told me what had happened.

  His glazed-over eyes finally found my face and he looked devastated, as if all the stuffing had been kicked and kicked out of him. He was still in his suit but his tie was undone. ‘I’ve lost my job,’ he eventually said. So much time had ticked away between the moment I asked and his reply that I had been on the verge of asking again.

  ‘Oh God, how? What’s happened?’

  ‘They gave me some bullshit, but I can’t believe it’s happened.’ He sounded distant, as if his faith in the world had been seriously shaken. I remembered how I felt when it happened to me and I hadn’t even been there that long.

  I crossed the room to the sofa and sat down beside him, aware that I still had the fug of ammonia and bleach and chlorine around me. I snuggled up to him – put my arms around his middle, rested my head on his chest, pushed my body as close to his as possible. I was trying to take away his pain, to absorb it into my body. His heart was beating so fast in his chest I was scared it was going to stop suddenly. ‘What happened? They can’t just sack you, can they? Aren’t there laws about this sort of thing?’

  He slowly stroked his chin and was silent again for a long time.

  ‘Can you take them to court or something? What’s that thing called – an industrial tribunal? What about that? Won’t they be able to help you?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, they can’t help. No one can.’

  ‘But why? I can’t believe you’re not even going to try. They can’t do this. You’re a great employee. And if you don’t fight it, how are you going to get another job?’

  ‘Maybe I’ll do something else. There’s no point trying to get another job in accountancy, not once they’ve finished with my reputation. And I was getting bored of it all, anyway.’

  ‘No, you weren’t! You love your job. And what on Earth are they going to do with your reputation? You’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Let’s just drop it, Eve. I’m really not in the mood. They’re a bunch of wankers and I’m best off out of it.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Please tell me what’s happening. I won’t be able to sleep for worrying about it.’

  He sighed and my heart sank to my ankles. I knew then it was something to do with me.

  ‘Phil called me into his office. Asked if I was seeing you. I said yes and that we lived together, were even talking about getting married someday.’ My heart skipped a beat because we hadn’t talked about marriage but it was obviously in his head. ‘And he said did I know that you were a lap dancer.’

  My heart, which had been so lifted a minute ago, started to sink again, falling down to my stomach, then began freefalling towards my toes.

  ‘I said that you used to be, but you weren’t any more. And he said did I know that you also did extras in the back rooms? And I said you didn’t and he said you did. He said you’d once given him … he said you’d gone down on him. I said you wouldn’t do that. And things got out of hand and one thing led to another and I punched him out.’

  ‘Oh my GOD, Elliot!’

  I sat up and looked at him, horrified. The fact this man Phil lied about me was nothing compared to the fact that Elliot had fought him to defend my honour, as tainted as it was.

  ‘Don’t, don’t. I feel awful enough as it is. But at least I got him to admit you didn’t go down on him.’

  ‘They sacked you.’

  ‘Said I was lucky I wasn’t being charged with assault. But I’ll be paid until the end of the month, so that’s something.’

  ‘Oh God, Elliot, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘But I feel responsible. It’s not true, though, you know that, don’t you? I never did any of that. Other girls might have done, but I didn’t.’

  ‘I know, Eve, I know. That’s why I got so mad at him. Bastard. He’s lucky they dragged me off him when they did.’

  ‘What a mess,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied.

  We both sighed desolately and sat in silence for about an hour. I don’t know what he was thinking about, I was too scared to ask in case he was thinking that he should have known better than to get involved with someone like me. I was going from thinking about what had happened to wanting to hug him because he was thinking about marriage. Then I would start to worry about money. I had given up my job because he could support us. But if we didn’t have that …

  I’m not sure what we’re going to do, to be honest. After our hour of silence on the sofa, neither of us felt much like eating so he had a couple of smokes (won’t let him near my bed with cigarettes, let alone weed – which I’ve noticed he’s doing a lot more of) and I smoked a couple of cigarettes and we both went to bed.

  He eventually fell asleep and I’ve been sitting here, writing in this, hoping the answer to our impending money problems will present themselves. None have occurred to me so far. I don’t know, I feel sick when I think about our situation. I’m not sure I can go back to lap dancing. Although I miss Connie and some of the girls, and although I miss the freedom the money from it gave m
e, it was still – at the end of the day – being ogled and groped by strange men night after night.

  Elliot wasn’t that keen on me working in bars but, now that he’ll be at home during the day for a little while until he gets a job, he might not mind not seeing me in the evenings. Well, even if he does, there’s no way around it, is there? We need the money.

  What a mess.

  Me

  14th October 1991

  I would laugh if it wasn’t all so … something.

  I can’t quite find the words to describe what is happening sometimes. It often feels like I am living someone else’s life and that the real me is off somewhere at university, watching comedy shows, getting drunk in the college bar and becoming all political. The me that I get to live with, the one with the boyfriend who has been out of work for six months, wakes up to find the electricity has been cut off and then a few minutes later there are bailiffs on her doorstep because the electricity bill she thought was all paid up wasn’t and they need the money in cash right then or they’re coming in to seize stuff. By stuff they of course mean the furniture that belongs to the landlord, my rubbish TV that works when it feels like it, my stereo that is clearly of the same mind as my TV, and my collection of clothes that are mostly fit to be binned, apart from my beautiful dress. I gave them all the cash I had after they explained I would have been sent letter after letter after letter about this, and that I would have had phone calls too.

  And then, working on instinct, I picked up the phone to discover it had been cut off, too. So I got dressed and went to the phonebox down the road and I called the gas people to find out if they’d been ‘keen to make contact’ and of course they had. The same with the Poll Tax people, the phone people, and – oh yes – the Waterboard. The only person who wasn’t chasing me for money was the landlord but that’s because I pay him myself. Everything else is ‘sorted out’ by Elliot.