Part 2 I think maybe another couple of weeks went by before things blew up, infact several things blew up one after the other. Every night when tony got back from work he would strip to his boxers at the back door, working on the roads his clothes were always covered in tarmac, concrete, diesel etc so that was the best way of doing things rather than trailing shite through the house, he would then trundle upstairs, run a bath and start scrubbing himself down while I brought him up a cup of tea, I would then put the loo seat down, sit on it and we would chat about our respective days at work, while he was getting dressed I would go back downstairs and put the finishing touches to the dinner, ready for when he came down – it was a lovely routine, it suited us both and we just bobbed along together so harmoniously, after dinner most evenings we would just curl up together like little hamsters on the sofa, wrapped in each others arms, it was all so perfect, like poetry in motion.  One Thursday night though it changed, I went upstairs with his cup of tea ready for our usual bath time chat and the door was locked… I knocked and he replied that he had a jippy tummy and to leave his tea outside and he would get it in a while – fairly reasonable explanation, so I go back downstairs and wait for him to finish.  Ten minutes later he emerged and he just had ‘that look’ on his face, I can’t describe it, but I knew he was hiding something from me and bearing in mind that I’m still sitting on my new found information my brain goes into suspicion over drive (typical woman!) He went into the bedroom to get dressed and I went upstairs and into the bathroom, yes to snoop, at what I didn’t know but as a suspicious woman all my life who has had pretty well every trick in the book played on me, I had a gut feeling that I would find something, but in fact it was actually the lack of something that gave the game away that he was hiding something from me – for a bloke that had allegedly been sitting on the bog for ten minutes with the squits, the bathroom was remarkably fragrant!  Infact when I lifted the loo seat there was still my make up remover pad down the loo that I hadn’t flushed away from the morning, the toilet hadn’t even been used.. what was he up to?  Rather than create a stir and front him out I sat on that too, I had nothing to really throw at him, so I let it go, until the following night when it happened again, the door was locked shut - I knocked the door, he claimed bad guts again and said to leave his tea outside the door, which I did, then I went out the front door and looked up to the bathroom window to see it was wide open and clouds of smoke were billowing out – he was smoking a joint!  Now just why he felt the need to hide this from me at the time was a little beyond me, he knew that I was extremely anti drugs, but I had in the past had the odd puff on a spliff and wouldn’t have totally lost the plot over it, but I figured seeing as how he had just come out of rehab a few months ago perhaps that was why he felt the need to hide it, I really couldn’t figure it out at all, so I thought I would sit on that as well over the weekend and figure out how to tackle it then, if at all, tonight was Friday night, I loved our Friday nights out and didn’t want an atmosphere to spoil it.  I nipped upstairs into the bathroom for my shower, washed my hair etc and started getting tottied up - again we had a lovely routine that we fell into on a Friday night, Tony would put a lively CD on the stereo, usually Jamaroquai at the time and i would get into the shower, when I got out he would stand gazing at me lovingly while I whizzed around in my undies, doing my hair and make up and rummaging through my wardrobe for something to wear, the compliments flowing, sometimes we would make love before we went out then giggle like teenagers while we dashed around getting ready all over again to get to the restaurant on time so we didn’t miss our booking!  This particular Friday was no different really except that he was perhaps a little edgy or preoccupied, he brushed it off saying that he was under a bit of pressure at work though, so we set off for town.  Tony always drove when we went out Friday night, he wasn’t a drinker which was like a dream come true after my husband and on the way into town we stopped at the garage so he could get petrol, for the life of me I don’t know why, but I opened up the glove compartment of his car, there was a huge paper bag stuffed in there, he was just coming back across the forecourt as I managed a quick peek at the contents before slamming it shut – it was choc a bloc full of syringes, new ones still in their packets and little plastic vials of sterile water. Now this is how naïve I was back then, I truly thought that he must have been recently diagnosed diabetic and that was what they were for and that was why he had locked himself away in the bathroom, he just didn’t know how to tell me as he was stillcoming to terms with it himself– honest! yet again I sat on my new found information, I felt that it was up to him to divulge whatever, when he was good and ready and so we set off to the restaurant, half way there the car screeches to a halt, he has left his mobile phone at the garage, we turn round and literally break the land speed record hurtling back to find it, of course it is long gone, I told him it would be but he was inconsolable way beyond what I consider to be reasonable, he was literally tearing his hair out over it – the evening went downhill from that point onwards.  We eventually got to the restaurant, a little late but not desperately so, I quickly skimmed through the menu to order, he refused to eat anything, so I ate alone, him hurrying me along with every mouthful, we finished up, i paid the bill and left to go to our local watering hole and then onto a club as was the norm each week.  All night he was tetchy about having lost his phone, I could fully understand him being hacked off about it but he went on and on about it, he left me on my own twice to go back to the garage to look for it as well, I’d had enough by this stage and suggested we called it a night and went home but he insisted we went clubbing so off we went.  Usually I loved clubbing with tony, he was a fantastic dancer and we would wriggle and writhe around the dance floor together all night, not tonight, I hit the dance floor as soon as we got there while he sloped off to get the drinks, in fact he sloped off to get the drinks for over an hour – I was livid, he had never done this before and it was pointless me going looking for him cos it was such a big place with 3 separate levels that we would only have missed each other anyway, so I waited and of course a woman standing on her own in a club is a prime target for being chatted up by every drongo within spitting distance, so I was having to beat them off as I knew that he would be proper narked to get back and find some bloke steaming into me.  Eventually he returned, I had the right zig at this point and insisted we left to go home, however he was having none of it, wanted to stay, had no reasonable explanation as to where he had been for over an hour so i left him there and got a cab home.  Our first row, I was heart broken and cried myself to sleep, he came sliding back in about 4:30am –I was too tired to argue and pretended to still be asleep – something was going on but I just didn’t know what. Next day I figured it was best to keep a cool head about things, which suited him fine and despite the fact that he had had a late night, he was up and about fairly early wanting to go fishing and also see if his phone had been handed in by any miraculous chance!   While he was getting his fishing stuff together I went through the pockets of the trousers he had worn the night before, I found a small lump of dope, some headache tablets and a phone number… Well it doesn’t take Miss Marple to work out that a lump of dope is just that, a lump of dope, but the headache tablets were a mystery as was the phone number… I waited until he had gone and called the number, as you do, a fairly young sounding girl answered, I told her who I was and asked her politely if she would tell me what her connection was with my boyfriend, she burst into tears thinking that I was going to go round to her house and thump her, I reassured her that I had no idea whatsoever where she lived but I did want to know what was going on, this was to be the first of many similar conversations that I was to have with many woman in similar circumstances over the next few years – turns out that she had met him in the club the night before, she had no idea that he had a girlfriend, let alone lived with me and she had sold him some Ecstasy (the headache tablets!) I believed her, she had no reason to lie, he did, no wonder he came blundering back in at 4:30am – I was furious, but i was also worried, i read the horror stories in the newspapers and in my mind Ecstasy killed you, end of, i had finally found someone special and i did not want him dying from an Ecstasy overdose.  I couldn’t sit on any of this any longer, there was now too many little things starting to mount up that were giving me cause for concern, I had to have it out with him, so I sat and waited for him to get back from his fishing trip..

3.1.05 17:42 Permalink / 3 Comments / comment

Part 1   It began around April 1999, I was living in the Cotswolds and was just separating from my husband, leaving behind me an affluent lifestyle, a wonderful 4 bed roomed detached property and financial security but I was desperately unhappy, we both drank too much and for me I wanted to get away from that, I started off a happy drunk, but invariably wound up obnoxious, loud and aggressive, so the more I moved away from him and the booze, the less we had in common. Towards the end I fell pregnant, which may well have been the salvation of our marriage, but I miscarried and with that child went the remnants of our marriage, his grief was pathetic, I remained cool and level headed, while he crumbled in his self pity unable to console me, so he drank even more, wetting the bed night after night, ranting and raving like a child until I don’t think even he knew what it was he was ranting about, just did it all the same out of habit until I couldn’t take anymore, my love had gone, so I found myself a property to rent and left him, I didn’t even turn around to say goodbye, just left.  Looking back now I was heartbroken to have lost him, but I was so beside myself I couldn’t think straight and rather than do what I always did in a crisis, which was to get pissed, I did the other thing I always do in a crisis, I ran away….fficeffice" /> I met Tony the following weekend while out with a girlfriend on a Saturday night girlie bender, I was not looking for a relationship at all, you know how it is, but all night this blonde guy kept staring over until eventually he came over to chat to us, I let my mate take the lead, she thought he was gorgeous but it soon became apparent that I was the object of his desire and his opening line was ‘Hi my names Tony, I’ve just escaped from rehab’! the alarm bells should have been clanging shouldn’t they, but rather than blast him I actually admired his honesty and the fact that he had taken a chance by being so open, we talked a while, he didn't go into great detail about his stay at rehab and i didn't pry, i knew nothing about drugs anyway, so whatever he had told me probably wouldn't have registered, he did tell me though that he was a semi pro surfer and had recently be approached with a sponsorship deal by O'Neill to compete in Dominica, i was of course pretty impressed and with his shaggy blonde hair he did indeed look every inch the pro surfer.  Closing time came and I gave him my business card with my number and that was that really, he had to get back because as he had quite rightly said, him and his mates had literally bunked out the dorm window of the local rehab and slipped into town to socialise, so while they all went slinking back to the rehab, me and my mate went clubbing and as cute as he was i really didn't give him that much thought for the restof the night, infact, i pulled a young lad who was celebrating his 18th birthday and gave him one to remember! Next day though Tony called me, as arranged at 10am wanting to meet up, shit! What was I to do, I really didn’t want to get involved, not so soon, but my mate said just go for it, nothing ventured nothing gained, so I did, feeling a right heel cos I knew how much she had fancied him. So we met up, or rather I picked him up with the hang over from hell outside the rehab, he was allowed out for a couple of hours on the pretence of going to the gym and apart from me having said hangover from hell and rushing to the loo to puke every half hour, the date went well, we had quite a lot in common really, he told me his heart rending story of how he had found his father hanging in the family garage when he was 19 years old which was what had sent his life spiralling out of control and i told him that one of my sisters had been through a rehab for a drink problem and that he nothing to feel ashamed of, it could happen to anyone, our common ground was really starting to open up and i felt such a warmth towards him. Lookin back, even then, i don't think that he really divulged the exact nature of his 'addiction/s', i know that he hadn't mentioned heroin at that stage, i found out about that somewhere along the line, but i think i did ask him what he was in rehab for and he muttered something about doing a bit of coke that got out of hand and that was it really. Anyway the afternoon shot past and I dropped him back at the rehab arranging to meet again in a few days time, but next day, Monday morning at work, he turned up at my office to see me, couldn’t keep away and I knew then that this was going to lead into something more.         He just so was not my type, I had always gone for quite big, dark men, tony was a blonde, athletic surfer type of look bloke with a cheeky cockney accent and the body of a Greek god, he was drop dead gorgeous, every time I saw him my heart would melt and within a few weeks of knowing him, at the age of 33, I fell in love for the first time ever in my life, hook line and sinker.  Only if you have ever truly been in love with someone can you understand just how powerful it is to feel such love, tony only had to touch my hand and my whole body surged with electricity, enough to drain the national grid, for the first time in my life I also had a fantastic sex life, I suffered dreadful abuse both as a child and as a teenager, the memories of which haunted me all through every relationship, until I met tony, he was thoughtful, caring, considerate, passionate, everything I had only ever dreamed I would find in a man and within the month he had taken me to meet his mother declaring me as ‘the one’ then walked out of rehab and moved in with me.  Now the walking out of rehab thing did concern me slightly, I was at this stage totally naïve with regards to drugs and recovery programmes etc, but I knew that leaving halfway through a treatment programme was probably not the best idea, but it wasn’t my choice to make and he was terrified that if he stayed the final few weeks to complete it that I might meet with someone else, this really was my first indication as to tony’s true personality, impetuous and impatient, always rushing to the finishing post in case he misses something without stopping to consider that everything has a beginning middle and an end….  Those first few months were possibly the happiest I have ever known, within a couple of weeks of moving in with me he found work, he is a ground worker by trade and there is rarely any shortage of jobs in that field and reasonably paid at that, so we had a good standard of living, every Friday we would go out for dinner then onto a pub and usually a club as well, we would meet up still with the guys he had been in rehab with, tony loved to show me off to everyone, he called me kitten and I became his most treasured ‘possession’, his lover and his soul mate, he made me feel like the most beautiful woman on this planet, forever complimenting me, in a nice genuine way though, not a smarmy lecherous way, life just couldn’t be better, in the background my divorce was going through and we had a place lined up to buy for when my settlement came through.  As I mentioned earlier, tony still kept in regular contact with the guys he was in rehab with, both socially and also by going to NA (Narcotics Anonymous) Meetings regularly, I think he went twice a week as it was important to maintain the discipline and have the support network that NA can provide, especially in the early days of recovery, weekends tony went fishing and when I say went fishing he went all day, from 6am until 6pm, later if he could get away with it, it became a ritual, I would crack on with my housework and shopping and go to the gym while he sat on the riverbank relaxing rod in hand catching carp, on the whole I didn’t have a major issue with this, after all men do go fishing, but it started getting more and more and longer and longer, he bunked off work in the week to go fishing, it became an obsession to the point where I actually didn’t really know where he was some of the time, this was the beginning of things going slightly pear shaped, I think it was just coming up for the end of September and we had been together for about 4 months, something wasn’t quite right, I’m quite an intuitive person, but I just couldn’t put my finger on anything specific, …. but I am a woman that has been sat on, spat on and shat on all my life by men, I know when something aint as it should be and I know when I am being spun a line so I did what I shouldn’t have done really, I went ‘rummaging’ through his things looking for clues and oh boy did I get a shock!  It’s mad really cos even when he moved in with me I just took it as read that he was who he said he was, I didn’t question him deeply about anything, I had met his mother who was (is) an exceptional woman and I hope a lifelong friend and I had no reason at all really to think that there would be anything major that he was holding back from me – wrong!  I dragged his big holdall out from the loft, it had stacks and stacks of paperwork, photo’s, cards, letters etc in it and bit by bit went through everything, the first thing I picked up was a police charge sheet from when he was in living previously, he had been nicked for shoplifting some aftershave, okay he hadn’t told me about it but nothing that major really, there were a couple more charge sheets, similar stuff really, just petty shoplifting and something to do with his car that had been stolen, next I came across a typed letter, it was from his mother to the courts pleading the judge to be lenient on her son as he was currently in rehab battling heroin addiction – what!!!! My eyes nearly fell out of my head, no way, I was living with a heroin addict, a junkie, oh my god! I carried on looking through stuff and it all became clearer and clearer the full extent of it and it was horrendous, there were scrawled notes from his ex girlfriend glad to be shot of him cos he had totally ruined her life, he had used her beyond all belief blagging money from her or if she wouldn’t give it freely, stealing it from her and so it went on, I think I spent about 2 hours sifting through everything, sobbing, I couldn’t believe that this person that I was so in love with wasn’t really who I thought he was at all, I guess to be fair he hadn’t lied to me, he just hadn’t told me and I can’t say I blame him really, it wasn’t very attractive!  SO what to do..?  well I sat on it for a bit, I felt guilty for having betrayed his trust by going through his belongings in that way, but then again I lived with the bloke, surely I had a right to know who he was, I’m pretty sure that he must have had a trawl through some of my personal stuff at some stage too, not that I had any secrets and even if I did have I don’t think I could have topped his anyway!

2.1.05 17:46 Permalink / 3 Comments / comment