Eve should never have married Don Hathaway. Yes, he gave her two beautiful children – Olly and Tabitha – but he is a bully. Worse than that, he hurts her. But, after one drunken rage too many, she has the courage to leave him. Eve is warned that it's a difficult path, yet she needs to give her children hope for the future.
Don, however, is bitter. And getting away entirely from him proves impossible. Until the day, Eve tries to teach him a lesson – and it all goes horribly wrong.
Eve loves her children but now she carries a terrible burden that she dares not share. Has she betrayed her and her children's futures? Betrayal is Lesley Pearse's brilliant new page-turner.
1
London, 1998
Don shoved the back door open, banging it hard into the wall. Eve knew by the ferocity of his entrance he was certain to pick a fight with her tonight.
She knew there was no chance of appeasing him. She’d tried every which way in the past and it always ended the same. He would hit her. Often till she was unconscious.
It was just after eleven. That meant he hadn’t found a willing candidate for more drinks after the pub and a kebab. That usually mellowed his mood.
Eve braced herself for the inevitable as he stomped into the kitchen, looking at her balefully. ‘Can I make you a bacon sandwich?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Fuck off, you silly cow,’ he snarled. ‘Do I look like I want a bacon sandwich?’
You look like a pig, she thought but didn’t dare say. ‘Is there something else you’d like to eat?’
She didn’t see the punch coming. For a big man Don could pounce as swiftly as a cat. As his fist connected with her cheek her head rattled with an explosion of pain.
‘Is food the only thing you can offer?’ he shouted at her, and the stink of his beer and cigarette breath made her stomach heave too.
He caught hold of her shoulders, head-butted her, punched her in the stomach so she fell to the floor and then kicked her again and again. She heard a faint crack and knew that, once again, her ribs had broken, but even as she wanted to scream out in agony, she felt the heaven-sent wooziness of unconsciousness.
She came to later to find herself lying in blood; she wasn’t sure which part of her was cut, as everything hurt. An attempt at getting up proved hopeless – her ribs and head hurt too much. Don had left the kitchen light on, and she wished she could manoeuvre herself to reach the cardigan she’d left on the kitchen chair because the heating had turned off and she was very cold.
There was nothing for it but to lie in agony waiting for it to abate enough to try to get up. She would blank out the thought of all the other times she’d lain for hours in this very spot.
‘You should never have married him,’ she muttered as she lifted one hand to examine her face. Her left eye had already swollen so badly she couldn’t see out of it, and one of her teeth was bleeding but it didn’t feel as if it would fall out. The rest of the blood appeared to be from her shin, where Don had kicked it.
So many people had advised her against marrying Don, including her father. They had all witnessed various bouts of bad temper, but back then Eve always found a good reason for them. Besides, back in 1986 when they’d married, his anger had never been directed towards her.
Eve’s mother Sandra had died from breast cancer when Eve was ten, and her father Jack had become a dour, difficult man, so getting married and gaining a home of her own seemed a happy solution. Don was ten years older than Eve, a big dark-haired handsome man. He was a plumber and made a very good living. He even owned a house of his own. Granted it was only a two-up two-down in a scruffy road in Lewisham, and in bad repair, but Eve felt she could make it lovely.
They had only been back from their honeymoon in Spain for a week when he hit her for the first time.
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ he said almost as soon as he’d attacked her, and he got a bag of ice to put on her already swelling eye. ‘I had a terrible day at work and when you began nagging me about decorating the lounge, I just saw red.’
She found herself apologizing for merely offering to paint and wallpaper it herself, something she was good at. She hadn’t considered that was nagging. But as he kissed her bruised face and told her he loved her, she forgave him.
“It had all gone sour and she knew she must finally make a plan to escape him.”
With hindsight she should’ve walked out of the door right then.
Don was delighted when she told him she was pregnant. When the scan showed it was a girl, he was even more thrilled; he said he’d always wanted a daughter. He didn’t hit her again for quite some time, and she believed that he never would again. But when she was eight months pregnant and she said she was too tired to go to the pub with him one Friday night, he hit her again and when she tried to run away from him, he’d grabbed her, swung her round and broke her wrist.
‘Don’t you ever try to run away from me,’ he snarled at her. ‘You are my wife, and you must obey me. So if I say we are going to the pub, you go with a smile on your face.’
Her broken wrist was still in plaster when she went into labour. Her midwife pointed out she’d find a few problems with bathing and dressing a new baby. Eve remembered thinking that perhaps that would be a wake-up call for Don, seeing her struggling at such an important time. But he didn’t appear to even notice.
Fear made her obedient. Not just fear of Don, but fear of what her father would do if she ran to him for help. He was not in the best of health and if he tried to stand up to Don, he might have a stroke or a heart attack. Then there was the fear of what the neighbours would say. They liked Don as he’d done plumbing work for most of them. They would believe any story he chose to tell them. Then there was the fear of having to bring her baby up alone.
A year later Oliver was born, and she told herself she had to make the best of it, as where could she go with two small children? He had always made a fuss over Tabitha, but he seemed totally disinterested in Oliver. Maybe she should have sensed what was to come instead of fooling herself into thinking one day it would all come right.
Now, as she lay on the floor, cold and in terrible pain, she glanced at a framed wedding photograph on the wall. She had looked so pretty that day, her blonde hair curling around her face, blue eyes alight with happiness at becoming Mrs Donald Hathaway at last. Eighteen, with a slim hourglass figure and an alabaster complexion. Back then Don said she was like a beauty queen, and to her he’d been a tall, dark and handsome prince.
But it had all gone sour and she knew she must finally make a plan to escape him. Her father had died five years ago; perhaps his heart attack was due to a broken heart because despite all the efforts she’d made to hide what Don was doing to her, he’d found out. He had urged her to bring the children and come and live with him. He’d planned to see a solicitor so if he should die, the proceeds of the sale of his house would go directly to Eve, not to her and Don. Tragically he had died before he could organize it. Eve couldn’t help but wonder if Don had brought on his heart attack by threatening him.
So it was that Eve’s old family home, a semi-detached house on one of the best roads in Eltham, passed to both Don and Eve. Don in his usual imperious way saw the money from the sale as his and made an offer on a brand-new Georgian-style detached house in Grove Park. He didn’t even take her to see it until his offer had been accepted.
She had to admit it was a lovely house, with a good school nearby, a big park and direct train access to central London. But back in Lewisham she had people she knew close by, friends she’d made taking the children to playgroups and latterly at infant school. While she had never divulged to anyone what Don did to her, she was fairly certain most had guessed and sympathized. Julia, one of the mothers whose son was in the same class as Oliver back then, was a nurse and had seen Eve come into casualty one morning looking as if she’d been in a car crash.
“Just as Eve thought the bad old days had gone forever, Don came in one evening from work and gave her such a terrible beating that she was in bed for days.”
Yet when Don had taken her to see the newly built house in Briar Road, he’d said it was to be a new beginning for them.
‘I’ve never liked being so close to other people as we are in Lewisham,’ he said. ‘It makes me nervy, like we’re being spied on. It’s too cramped and old-fashioned. I hate it.’
He took her face in his two hands then and kissed her tenderly. ‘I know I haven’t always been kind to you, Eve,’ he admitted. ‘But I do love you and I’m going to turn over a new leaf and spend more time with you and the kids.’
He raved about the big garden and how he’d build a shed for himself and put up a swing and climbing frame for the kids. ‘We’ve never had enough space, but here we’ll have plenty,’ he said, beaming with happiness at what the new house would bring them all. ‘The kids can ride their bikes on the street; it’s safe and quiet here. We are going to be so happy.’
She believed him too and for almost a year after they’d moved in they were happy. They had passionate lovemaking like they’d had on their honeymoon, and Eve forgot to be cautious in what she said to Don. Oliver and Tabitha loved having a bedroom each and liked their new schools. It all looked so rosy, and for the first time in their marriage she was able to take control over the decor, something she had a flair for. Don even praised her for the chic and tasteful result. Eve particularly loved the spacious modern kitchen, with French windows that opened out on to the garden, and Don built his shed halfway down it, laughingly saying he might live in it.
But just as Eve thought the bad old days had gone forever, Don came in one evening from work and gave her such a terrible beating that she was in bed for days. He started to pick on Oliver around the same time; ridiculing him for not liking football, for spending too much time reading and called him a ‘milksop’. Soon his spite turned to slaps and punches, and on one occasion he beat Oliver with a piece of lead piping because he claimed his son had scratched his car getting his bike out of the garage. One night when Don was attacking her, Oliver came out of his room to try to defend her, but that ended very badly when he punched the boy so hard he broke two of his ribs.
Eve could see that both Oliver and Tabitha were becoming withdrawn and fearful in their father’s presence. She made them promise that if they heard any rows they would stay in their rooms. But she knew lying in bed listening to their mum being hurt must be terrible for them. She had to take them and flee to safety, somewhere he’d never find them.
The trouble was she had no money of her own. She hadn’t worked since Oliver had been on the way, and although she’d been trained in curtain making at an interior design shop in Blackheath and become so good at it that Jacintha her boss had been upset to lose her, she had no job now. Maybe she could make curtains again, but how could she rent a flat without money for advance rent and a deposit? And how could she get all three of them out of this house without him suspecting anything?
Despite all Don had done to her, she also resented leaving the house when it was her father’s money that had paid for it. The sale of his own little house had been spent by Don on a bigger van for work, a new BMW, his shed, and the rest frittered away at the pub.
As she lay there shivering, she wondered if there was a way she could kill him, as his death would solve everything for her. A pillow over his face while sleeping? A push down the stairs, or could she cut the brakes on his van? Poison? Or just knife him and claim it was self-defence?
Extracted from Betrayal by Lesley Pearse, out now.
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