SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 6)

On truth and lies

We flew to Majorca in bliss. Our first air flight, our first holiday and the first time we had been alone together for three weeks without interruptions or pressing commitments.

We arrived at the hotel and immediately set out to explore our surroundings. We booked for the usual excursions and evening entertainment that package holidays provide, thinking that this would be a leisurely experience with lots of sunbathing and swimming.

The hotel had a restaurant and bar but we soon discovered that we preferred the food at a nearby shack facing the beach. Everything was remarkably cheap but carefully presented there.
We soon became friendly with other British holidaymakers at our hotel and Tony chose to spend quite a bit of time with them in the bar.
I don't really like any alcoholic drinks very much so I spent most of my time by or in the swimming pool or on the beach.

Tony, ever the joker, wanted to take a pedalo offshore for a change. As soon as we were a good few hundred yards offshore he encouraged me to dive in for a swim. I was hot and so I dived into the deep cold water. I surfaced to see him peddling madly away from me, laughing. No worries, I thought, I can probably race him back to the shore.

I began breast-stroking in a racing pace and style. Thank goodness I had my eyes open as I submerged. Directly ahead of me was a Portuguese Man of War jellyfish with long colourful, curly tentacles trailing menacingly beneath it. I sank instantly with shock and felt my ears pop at the 12 foot mark. Still I allowed myself to sink until the tentacles were well above me. Then, summoning all my energy, I swam at a 45 degree angle for the surface, my lungs bursting for air all the way. Tony was freaking out when I got to the pedalo.

“You scared the crap outta me!” he admonished, genuinely angry.
I was too breathless to speak…..
When I recovered enough I explained. He winced and looked guilty for all of….. maybe a nano-second! Then it was all forgotten as he heard a cool pint of beer calling him from the bar. Well, he forgot it. I never did.

During the final week I began to miss Dan and our home which was a good sign that I had rested well enough.
I became sick and tired of the bawdiness and rowdy behaviour in the bar and chose to go to our room to read in bed during the late evenings.
One night I was particularly tired after much swimming all day so I fell asleep quite early. Suddenly I was awake but did not know what had alerted me. The room had the usual balcony and sliding door access. The door was very slightly ajar and I could see someone moving out there.
I kept very still and watched this person reach to slide the door silently open.
I slid out of the bed to the floor so that I could not be seen from the window. I grabbed my red macintosh which was lying nearby and putting it on, I fled out of the room.

I ran to the bar and found Tony. Quickly I explained what was happening and he raced out of the building, followed by two other young friends, just in time to see someone climbing down from our balcony.

While I was waiting for him to return to the bar I was offered a drink by one of the young women who was standing nearby.
She was curious about who I was and seemed really shocked when I said that I was Tony's wife.
"But he doesn't wear a ring!" she declared almost accusingly. I explained about the ring being ruined during a roofing fall but I was watching her body language and this girl was more than just interested in Tony.

When he came back he said that he had chased the guy for a long while and when he finally caught him he slammed him against a wall, searched him but found nothing.
He said that the guy didn't speak any English and seemed to be mentally deficient.
Tony's two Liverpool friends laughed raucously at this version of events and said that they had finally caught up with Tony just in time to see him knock the guy out with one punch!

Tony gave me a sheepish, whoops-I-lied face but hustled me out of the bar and back to the hotel room as fast as he could. His excuse being that I was barefoot and naked under the macintosh. He then returned to the bar!

I got dressed and slipping quietly outside went to observe the bar from the darkened veranda. What I saw hit me like a stone between the eyes.

There was my husband, on our honeymoon, making obvious physical advances to the tall leggy blonde who had bought me the drink. I stayed and watched for maybe fifteen minutes as she draped herself all over him and he seemed to be quite comfortably accepting the situation.

I spotted them leaving the bar and, following at a very discreet distance, I saw them go into the room immediately next door to our own.
Just as I was about to knock on the door the two friends from the bar came around the corner of the corridor and startled me. I shot quickly into our own room and heard them joining Tony and the girl.
Hotel walls are not the thickest so I could hear that this was turning into a drinking party next door. Or so I thought.

I got into bed feeling sick, really sick.
Surely not? I was thinking. Surely he would not.... but he did.

I woke up early the following morning and Tony was sparked out flat beside me.
I got up, dressed in my swimsuit and went downstairs for a coffee. I took it to the swimming pool where I numbly dived in and began pounding up and down while the pool was still empty.

A few hours went past before Tony appeared on the balcony looking as if he had a severe hangover. He waved to me but did not come outside to join me.
Around lunchtime I was heading to our room to dress when I heard Tony laughing from the bar.
I went in there to be greeted by Tony and his new friends, ranting on about liquid breakfasts being a great way to start the day as you intended to go on! I was speechless with rage and simply turned on my heel and left them to it.

The only thing that stopped Tony from drinking on that holiday was the day he found his wallet empty and, asking me if I had any more cash, was a bit taken aback when I stated that I too had run out of money.

The last few days were like living with a grumpy old man.
He did not want to come swimming, he did not want to eat the food provided at the hotel and he could not go to the bar skint.

He eventually borrowed some cash from one of his new friends and we just about had enough to get home.

Trying to remain cheerful was impossible for me.
I am not good at hiding my feelings and my mother-in-law was a sharp-eyed woman.
"Something is very wrong with you Fran!" she stated within minutes of me walking through the door of my home.
I poured out my heart to her and she pulled the kind of face that had seen it all before and worn the t-shirt to shreds.

She didn't need to say much.

Tony had enquired about the whereabouts of his father and had gone straight out of the house to find him at a club, just around the corner.

A few hours later they came home and my father-in-law came to find me in the garden, playing with Dan and Dylan.

"Clacton is a den of iniquity!" he announced grimly, causing me to react in surprise. "Is it?" I replied dolefully.
"It most certainly is! I can't stand the place and it shocks me that a lovely girl like you wants to live in a terrible place like this!"

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather! I had no idea what he was referring to and could only surmise that he had seen a side of the town that I had never seen.
I had not been out socially very much since I had been pregnant and certainly not since Dan was born because on the one occasion I had gone out with Tony my leaking breasts had turned the entire front of my lovely new dress transparent and I had returned home early alone and by taxi.

A general feeling of extreme uneasiness came over me when we said goodbye to my parents-in-law that weekend.
Something told me that my perfect life was not as perfect as I thought and I resolved to pay close attention to what Tony and his friends were getting up to.

Dan developed mumps, quite suddenly.
His little face was all out of shape and he was permanently asleep. I was making a wedding dress for a customer and he lay hot and still on the comfy rocking chair as I cut out the fabric on the floor.
That night he woke up and was grizzling quietly to himself when I got him out of his cot and took him to the kitchen to make him a cool drink.

It was a Friday night almost midnight and, as was usual, Tony was “out with the boys" as he called it.
I put Dan in his pushchair, got my coat and with Dylan trotting along beside us I went out into the cold evening air to find Tony.
I headed to the one public house that he had mentioned was particularly "off limits" for me. He had always said that it was not the sort of place that a man could take his wife because it was where "the boys" drank.

I parked the pushchair and went to open the door when Billy appeared behind me. He was stunned to see me there.
"Don't go in, Fran!" he urged. "I will go and find Tony for you!" with which he disappeared into the pub. I skirted the windows but they were all curtained and I could not see into the building at all.
Tony came out and was very cross that I had disturbed him.
I made some lame excuse that Dan was so poorly that I was getting really worried but Dan had dropped off to sleep again and was looking just fine.

Tony came home with me that night and I asked him who he was with in the pub. When the door had opened I had seen beyond him. Watching him leave was Lorraine Freeman, a girl I did not like or trust, the one who had questioned me when I had paid a lot of money into the bank after the Weeley Festival.

He brushed my enquiries off with the usual response "just the boys" and there did not seem to be any point in trying to question him more. I did not want to hear lies.

A few days later Lorraine made a point of stopping me in the street to chat. She offered to help carry the shopping and seemed to be trying very hard to befriend me.
When we arrived at the house I invited her in for a coffee, because I am polite, not because I actually wanted her in my house. She was being extra friendly towards me.
Just then it started to rain hard and I observed that Tony would be coming home any minute. He never worked in the rain after that fall he had from the Colchester Town Hall, it had taught him a harsh lesson.

Tony appeared, shaking the rain from his jacket and visibly jumped with surprise when he saw Lorraine sitting in my kitchen with me. He didn't say much, just mumbled something about a bath and, grabbing Dan from the playpen, he made his way to the bathroom immediately above the kitchen.
We could hear them messing about up there and Lorraine said that she would leave me to prepare dinner and would see me around.

Later Tony asked why she was in his house.
I explained that she had been helping me with the shopping but he ordered that I was to avoid her in future. I feigned surprise and asked what he had against her, she seemed such a nice person. He grumbled something about her being a slag, sleeping around with all the boys. He did not want me associating with her and that was that.

I smelled the biggest of rats and once again that strange feeling of sickness in the pit of my stomach rose to throttle my words.