Page 87 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
I nod. ‘Matt said he was trying to get hold of you, to tell you about me.’
‘I thought…’
I gaze at her, and see a world of fear in her eyes.
‘I don’t trust him. I can’t.’
I have something she doesn’t have, and it’s worth everything. The ability to start again, to trust. I hope she’ll have it someday. When we set out to walk to the police station, I notice there are trees with blossom on them and I don’t mind as much about the wet pavements and the chilly breeze. Spring is coming. It’s a new start. It makes me consider another new start I made.
44
THEN
With a new pub, I think, you open with a bang. A party to launch you. With a women’s shelter, you open quietly, without fuss. No party, but still a day when you open your doors for the first time. And this is that day. Matt is at the hospital, and I’m walking from room to room, trying to imagine what this place might feel like for someone coming to it from a dangerous home situation. I hope it is welcoming.
When we first got the keys, I thought I’d taken on more than I could handle. The empty rooms, which had seemed to be in pretty good shape when I’d had a look around, suddenly revealed themselves to be littered with cracks in the plaster and stained carpets. I went to the Pheasant that night and told Dee all about it, said I was worried I couldn’t manage it.
‘Can I take a look?’ Derek asked.
I looked at him. Dee and I were used to speaking freely about anything and everything in his earshot and he rarely joined in.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘I’ve done a bit of all sorts in my time. Painting and decorating, laying carpets. I was even a carpenter for a while. I could help.’
I looked at Dee and she raised her eyebrows, as if to say ‘who knew?’ And then I thanked him, and he said he’d be there bright and early the next day. He stuck to his word. Over the next few weeks, while I made the transition from pub landlady to shelter manager, Derek was there every day. When there was something he didn’t know how to do, he’d make a call to an old contact and a plumber or an electrician would be there within an hour or so, always offering mates’ rates.
When it was done, and I was looking around the place, hardly able to believe the transformation, he stood back and watched me.
‘I didn’t say much,’ he said at last, ‘when you went through all that business with your ex-husband. I didn’t think it was my place. But you’ve been good to me, you and Dee. I’m glad I could help make this happen.’
‘What you’ve done is unbelievable. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.’
He reddened. ‘A pint will do me fine as a thank you.’
We were silent for a minute, and I didn’t think he was going to say anything else, but then he did.
‘My wife, Theresa. She left me for another man and it broke my heart, but I decided that if that’s what she wanted, if she was happy, I’d let her go. But two years later, she was dead.’
I widened my eyes.
‘He killed her, Shelley. What I’ve done here, I’ve done it for you and I’ve done it for her.’
There was a tear in his eye, and I watched him brush it away.
‘For Theresa,’ I said, lifting the can of Diet Coke I was holding as if in a toast. ‘Thank you.’
For weeks, we’ve been letting the other shelters in the area know that we’re going to be opening, and the people who run them have all said that there is a need for more space, more beds. But even so, I am sort of surprised when my phone rings at around eleven and someone from Women’s Aid asks if I can house a young mum and her two sons. I say yes and when I hang up the phone, I don’t know what to do first, so I go upstairs and make up a room with three beds.
The woman arrives within the hour. She has a black eye and a cut on her cheek that could have been made by a ring. She is flanked by two similar-looking boys with dark hair and dark eyes. They look about two and four, and I wonder what they’ve seen and heard. Whether they clung to one another beneath the covers the way I used to cling to Granny Rose.
‘Ella,’ she says. ‘I was told you’d be expecting me.’
‘Come in,’ I say. ‘Please. Make yourself at home.’
During the months of preparation, I have thought about whether I’ll reveal myself as a fellow victim of domestic abuse to the women I’m trying to help. The only conclusion I’ve come to is that it will depend on the circumstances. And here I am with my first guest, and I ache to tell her she is not alone. That it is not her fault. But there’s no opportunity to do it, while I’m giving the tour. When we get to the living area and the boys see the buckets of toys, their eyes flash brighter. I have gathered these toys and books and games carefully from charity shops and car boot sales, constantly checking that every age group is covered. The boys go over and pull out little cars and soon they are racing them across the carpet and I ask Ella if she wants to go into the kitchen for a cup of tea.
‘I’ll be through here,’ Ella says to them, but they are lost to their game. She leaves the door propped open.
