Weather Report

I like wet days. No one can see my tears. The darkness of a stormy sky comforts me beyond words. I welcome it with open arms and wrap it around myself like a blanket. Sunny days are the worst. On sunny days, all I can do is look out of the window and watch the kids playing in the park below, like worry dolls in the distance. Their mothers watch over them the way I used to with Wee Frankie. Life seemed easier in those days. The other mums envied me because I had Frank. Everyone loved Frank.

When I first met Frank he had a kind of glow about him, a charm that no one could resist, and I fell for his crooked smile hook, line and sinker. But looking back I suppose I should have seen the signs. I thought it was sweet that he wanted me to stop seeing my friends after we were married. It proved he cared about me. I had a husband, and that was all that mattered.

At first, everything was blissful, just me and Frank in our own little bubble. But then he started demanding that his dinner was ready the minute he came in from work. I could understand that – he’d been hard at work all day and he was hungry. But then he would wolf it down without saying a word. I would try to make conversation, but I may as well have been invisible. Then when he was finished he’d go upstairs to wash and change, then go straight back out to the pub.

Later, he’d come home stinking of smoke and beer. When he stumbled into the bedroom I pretended to be asleep, but he didn’t care if he disturbed me. He’d put the light on and make a racket pulling off his boots, letting them fall to the floor with a thud. Then I would hear him take off his leather belt, coil it around his hand, and place it carefully on the bedside table next to me. It was a reminder of his power over me.

When Wee Frankie came along, Frank’s threats stopped for a while and I kidded myself we were happy. Frank loved playing with Wee Frankie, bouncing him on his knee, telling him he’d be a prizefighter one day. Then one evening, Frank came home late from work. I’d put his dinner on the table as usual but I’d been so busy with Wee Frankie that I forgot about it and let it go cold. When he took a mouthful and realised it was cold, he threw his knife and fork down with such a clatter that it woke Wee Frankie up, and I’d only just got him off to sleep. Frank was ranting and raving, saying what a useless lump of a wife I was. He said he should never have married me, that I was a pathetic waste of space. From then on things just got worse. I was walking on eggshells the whole time, afraid to say the wrong thing. Sometimes he would put his hands on his belt just to remind me who was in charge.

So I concocted a plan. I squirreled away some money and kept it hidden in my bra. He’d never find it there. I managed to save just enough for the bus fare out of town and a month’s rent. Then one morning, after he’d left for work, I threw a few things in a bag, bundled Wee Frankie up in a blanket and made my escape. My heart was pounding as I waited at the bus stop, praying that no one would see us. At last the bus came and as we left town I breathed a huge sigh of relief. He’d never catch us now.

And here is where we made our home, on the top floor of this tower block, just me and Wee Frankie in our own little place. It felt like paradise for a while. Then the lift started breaking down and no one bothered to repair it, or clean off the graffiti. Then I got arthritis and couldn’t take the stairs anymore. And when Wee Frankie left school he got in with a bad crowd. He turned out just like his dad, always spoiling for a fight. In the end it was to be the death of him. But I’m not alone any more. I have the darkness. And Frank’s belt coiled on the bedside table.