Page 88 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
‘How do you take it?’ I ask, putting the kettle on to boil.
‘Just milk.’
The silence grows around us, so when Ella speaks again, it’s a jolt.
‘This isn’t how I thought my life would go,’ she says.
‘I’m sure,’ I say. ‘I wanted to be a pop star.’
Ella smiles and I feel something breaking down between us, some familiarity creeping in.
‘What are your sons called?’
‘Jack and Harry. Jack’s almost four, Harry’s two. I didn’t…’
She stops, and when I look over, I see that Ella is frantically swiping at tears, as if she thinks she can hide them, or force them back in. I wait, in case she wants to finish her sentence.
‘I didn’t think I’d be a single mum.’
I run through a couple of different things I could say to this, but they all sound glib. I am not a mother and I can’t presume to know what it’s like to be one, to have all that responsibility piled at your feet, to know that it’s going to last for decades. What I really want to say is that there are worse things than being a single mum, and that living with a violent man is one of them.
‘Do you want to talk about him?’ I ask.
‘No.’ The answer is abrupt, sharp. Sure.
I think about the pain one person can inflict. The physical side of it, and the mental. Why would anyone choose to do that to someone they claim to love? It’s a question I’ll never stop asking.
‘What made you get into this line of work?’ Ella asks.
I’m not sure how to respond, but then Ella looks straight at me for perhaps the first time since she arrived, and the information passes between us with no need for words.
‘Oh,’ Ella says. ‘Oh. You too.’
I nod. I’m distant enough from my experience with David to talk about it, and if Ella wants me to, I will. But not today. Today is about making her feel safe, making her sons feel protected and secure.
‘I’ll get some lunch on the go,’ I say, opening the fridge. ‘And then I’ll walk you through the legal and practical support we can offer.’
Later, Matt is cooking dinner and asking me how it all went, and I tell him about Ella and her sons. The haunted look she has. He doesn’t turn away from the hob, where he has a stir-fry sizzling, but I know that he is listening.
‘So many women,’ he says. ‘I’ll never understand it.’
‘About one in three, I think.’
I have read a lot, in the past few months, about domestic abuse. I know from my own experience how it works, how it builds and erupts, and how people are often persuaded to stay. What I don’t know, and suspect I will never know, is why some men like to hurt women.
‘So how do you feel, about your first day?’
‘Hopeful,’ I say. It’s true.
Matt pushes the wok off the heat and comes over to me, wraps his arms around me.
We stand like that, in the middle of the kitchen, for a minute or two, and then I pull away and get bowls out for our food.
When I gave up the pub, I had to give up the flat above it, too. It was strange, after so many years, to be looking for somewhere new. But Matt told me that he’d scraped a deposit together in the time he hadn’t had to pay rent while we lived above the Pheasant, and now we have this little place that we own. Whenwe came to look at it, we both knew it was the one for us. It’s not ostentatious or flash, but it has everything on our checklist, from two bedrooms to a small garden. It’s close enough to town that we can both walk to work, and it’s only a short walk from Dee and Liam’s. We’ve been here for three months, and we’re making a list of things we need to do to it, but none of them are urgent, and besides, I am looking forward to doing them. The flat never felt like a proper home, I realise. It was an extension of the pub. And the pub had become a sort of identity for me. Who am I now?
When the phone rings, I know it will be Mum because she’s the only one who uses the landline.
‘Shelley, it’s me, it’s Mum.’
