The Man of Straw

The madness continues and I'm getting sucked back into it. I live it hourly, I dream it and I can't escape. I hate it, I long to close the door on it and compartmentalise it but I know that this time it won't go until my financial settlement is over.

Pip is still incandescent with fury over his proposed re-assessment. He blamed me for allowing it to happen but my other children are only too painfully aware that when their father demands something, I haven't got the emotional strength to refuse him. He has a strength of will which is awesome.

My solicitor, Mr Harker, is getting increasingly frustrated with the demands of my ex-husband, Jay. It started simply enough, we had to prove that a four year old diagnosis of a life long affliction was still correct. Within days Jay had changed his existing demands, Pip had to need 24 hour care, seven days a week. I rang up Dee, who ran a care home and a care agency. 'Don't be stupid, he would have to be in intensive care to be classed as needing twenty four hour care. If he needed that level of support then social services would have to provide a proportion of it, you couldn't ever go to bed. You would only have to prove that you provide an average of thirty five hours of care a week, just like the Carer's Allowance specifies. And you do that easily.' But I knew that Jay Asperger would demand more.

As the days wore on, I became increasingly angry with myself for being sucked back into his demanding world. I could feel his control and it made me sick. Then the nightmares started.

It would start simply enough. I would be standing by the window in the sitting room, it was early evening and I was alone in the room. I heard a noise behind me and turned to find Jay sitting on the couch. I would find myself crying as I watched him, inert and unresponsive, sitting staring blankly ahead, just like he used to. I tried to shoo him out of the house but he carried on, staring into the distance, cold and rigid. As I tried to make him leave the children would suddenly appear, stare aghast at their father and start screaming that I had let them down, how could I let him back in again after all he had done to hurt us? The spell would break and I would find myself alone in bed, my eyes wet with tears, my mouth shaping my apology to the children and my heart racing. I would lie there, too scared to fall back to sleep, listening to the sounds of Pip screaming out in the night, until the first light of dawn would creep under the window blind and I would fall asleep, secure in the knowledge that Jay wasn't part of my life anymore. But the dreams would carry on. This time I would be lying in bed and my arm, numb with tiredness would stretch across the bed, until it hit something solid. It was Jay, getting into bed after hours of watching TV, I could tell by his responsiveness that he sensed I was awake and was edging towards me. I could feel his breath on my shoulder as he pulled back the bedclothes and I knew his next words would be 'fancy a bit of anal?' as he reached over, feeling for my breasts. I felt sick, his skin was sweaty and his breath was alcohol fumes. I would wake up, bolt upright in bed ready to run away, my heart galloping.

The Sunday following the court case I arranged to meet a group of friends and acquaintances in the pub. Pip ran home, scared at the idea of meeting up with so many people. I went in to apologise for my absence, walking straight up to their noisy, lively corner without buying a drink. Alison beckoned me over to an empty seat beside her and I stumbled through my apology, knowing she would understand about Pip. 'You look tired, how are you?' she gently cooed. I was halfway through my story, with tears burning my cheeks before I realised what I was doing. I sobbed for half an hour, faces desperately trying to look away and spare me the indignity and embarrassment of knowing I was being watched. Caroline reached over with a packet of paper handkerchiefs, pressing them generously into my soggy hand, worried that Pip had been hurting me. The mother of an acquaintance, a nurse, tried to calm me down and between them, they carefully dried me out and gave me the strength to walk back out of the pub, ready to face Pip's anger.

That evening Nina walked into town to meet her friends. Alex, bored with the TV, went to bed early with Pip, the two of them squabbling in the bathroom, their mouths full of toothpaste lather. I sat down in front of the computer, ready to research more life skills colleges for Pip but the tears which I had managed to hide from the children started rolling down my cheeks. I sat there in the half light, too tired and upset to use the computer, too miserable to move to the couch. Eventually I went upstairs and washed my tear stained face, but I looked in the mirror and saw the sad, lonely women I was becoming and the tears started afresh. I turned and found Nina, who had quietly crept up on me, expecting to chat about her evening. 'What's wrong?' her face contorted in concern and the whole sorry tale about how I was feeling trapped and controlled by Jay came tumbling out. 'Don't worry,' she whispered as she led me to the edge of my bed, 'we've come so far since he left, we've managed so much now he isn't a part of our lives. We are so much happier now he's gone. Do you think I'd be like this if he was still here? We're no longer scared of him. It's just a temporary thing, it's the last burst of his power, it will soon be all over and he'll never come back.' But I knew he would do everything in his power to keep that control, he'd already argued about everything he could think of in the previous mediation, in letters to my solicitor and in previous court hearings. He wasn't going to relinquish his power so easily. That night the nightmares continued and he was within a hair's breadth of touching me before I woke up.

The next morning the mental health worker phoned to arrange an appointment to see Pip. I burst into tears, much to her surprise. I sat there, incoherently babbling to her about Jay and she tried to restore order into the conversation and bring the appointment forward. I sobbed my thanks to her, put the phone down and found I couldn't stop. For hours the tears flowed, allowing Pip the joyful opportunity of accessing the computer without fear of me seeing him. He spent an idyllic morning signing his father up to random, eccentric political party emails, offering his father's support for minority candidates, requesting a personal visit, asking for details on direct debit giving.

Nina and Alex became concerned about my tears, taking it in turns to comfort me. Pip, aware that we were all otherwise occupied, turned his attention to the kitchen, ladling huge spoonfuls of sugar into weak coffee and gulping it down thankfully, making himself plates of noodles, gleefully adding handfuls of salt. I continued sobbing.

I tried to distract myself, playing stupid, inane games on the computer but the tears kept flowing. I tidied up the kitchen after Pip's recent attack, throwing away the empty sugar bag and wiping up the spilled salt, but it made no difference to my tears. Pip walked in, to find me sobbing, 'are you cutting onions or are you upset?' he said mechanically. 'I'm sorry, I'm upset, I feel as if Jay is back, controlling me and I'm scared.' 'I hate the bastard. He's evil and he won't buy me car insurance! Let's drive over there, I can put a bat through his car windscreen and we can steal his wife's car to get away in,' he laughed but I know that when Pip says he will use a baseball bat there is always the threat that he really will. That evening we ate pizza.

The next morning I was up early, ready to bundle Pip into his taxi. He mumbled retribution through his breakfast, watching to see for the taxi. As we walked to the door he was reminding me that he needed to phone back Jeremy Kyle and tell him Jay's office number. 'Don't contact him, don't sign him up for anything, don't get him any angrier than he is, please.' I begged him, but Pip was already planning a daily dose of emails and text alerts. 'I could sign him up for the London Underground texts alerts, they cost twenty pence a go and on a bad day he could get tens of them' he eagerly chattered as he ran off up the drive.

I shut the front door and busied myself, taking care not to turn on the radio and listen to sad news. But the tears were soon rolling down my cheeks. Damn! And I needed to take Alex to the shops to buy some more PE trainers. By midmorning the crying hadn't stopped, I reached over to the phone and dialed the number I had carefully written on the note pad.

'Hello, is that Women's Aid? This sound so stupid but my husband left five years ago, I was absolutely fine, then I had to see him in court last Friday and he shouted at my solicitor and accused me of saying hearsay when I was describing my son's disability. I dream he's come back in my life and he's controlling me again. He used to shout at me all the time, he didn't hurt me, it wasn't proper abuse but I hated it.' The words poured out, remembering past hurts, fears and worries. I sat there sobbing for an hour as she quietly listened to all my woes, gently reassuring me and affirming my story. 'B..b..but he's a lecturer in a university, he's remarried. I'm unemployable and I'm not even in a relationship. He used to say I was the one with the problems, not him. Professional men don't abuse their wives.' 'It takes all sorts, we have wives of highly paid professionals on our books. And besides, research shows that these men don't stop abusing just because they have moved on to another wife.' she sounded so authoritative but understanding that the crying continued afresh. Within minutes she had arranged for me to receive counselling. 'Do you want to tell me more, or do you want to rest now?' she gently questioned. 'I'm fine now,' I blubbered 'but I will look forward to the counselling.'

I stopped the crying long enough to get Alex into town and buy him some trainers.

By Friday Pip and Alex were both back in school and Nina was enjoying one last day of freedom. I arranged an appointment with my doctor and the normally placid and self-controlled Mrs Asperger blubbered her story to him as he calmly made notes, politely ignoring the damp mark which was growing on his desk and the increasing humidity in the room. 'You won't take drugs, I know you,' he briskly stated before booking me in with Natalie, the surgery counsellor 'we can't leave you in this state, she'll help you.'

On the way home, I took fifty pounds out of my bank account, not noticing I'd lost it until later that evening. I arrived home in time for a phone call from the head of Pip's sixth form, Aaron, anxious to explain to me his side of the sad story of the day. Pip had been invited on a filming trip to a local ruin, bored and unable to cope with the lack of structure to the day, he had entertained himself by throwing stones, shouting abuse at his teacher, goading the other children and finally running off, to be cajoled back into the car and driven back to school as he accused Aaron of paedophilia. By the end of the day, Aaron's crimes had been increased to finger wagging in Pip's direction, one of the most evil crimes anyone can be accused of. Between us, we laughed it off, or rather Aaron and I did, Pip was clearly in no mood to forgive and forget.

Nina told me a complicated story involving the class bitch, a party in one of the worst restaurants in the town and no friends she could sit next to. Within minutes I was arranging a meal in the nearest Wetherspoons, only it couldn't be the local Wetherspoons, in case someone saw her and was wondering why she didn't go to the bitch's party. It had to be far away, but nearby, so she could walk up to meet her friends after the meal. Before I knew it, Jordan, the neighbour's son was deciding what he would eat and Alex was deciding on a car seating plan. But it just wasn't my day, the pub was busy, we couldn't find a table, it took ages to be served, I discovered that my wad of notes had fallen out of my bag, then Pip had to leave the pub because it was too noisy, preferring to sit in my car outside. We rushed through our meal, anxious to see what Pip was getting up to and drove home in time for Nina to go out.

The next day Pip phoned up his father thirty times, telling him he was a bastard and he hated him. Each time the phone was put down on him. By lunchtime his dad was threatening to come round. 'You can't, we are all under police protection,' came Pip's reply. 'Why? Who's done that, I'm going to phone them up and tell them it's wrong, I'm not allowing that. I'll sort this nonsense out' said that increasingly agitated and angry Jay. But Pip was a match for him 'hang on a second, I've got the non-emergency number for the police, just ask for the domestic abuse team.'

By two o'clock Jay was threatening Pip with the police. I ordered him to leave the man alone, taking care to station myself between him and the phone. My order lasted until four o'clock, when I turned my back and heard the familiar click of the phone. That night Pip emailed his new step-mother to tell her that Jay lies and kicks me.

On Tuesday Pip argued with Aaron at school again. It was all a storm in a teacup which Pip could recite word-perfectly by home time but I knew Aaron would be at a loss to tell me what had caused the argument. The phone call came later than usual and I sat down, ready to laugh at Pip's antics but Aaron was in no mood for laughing 'I'm sorry Mrs Asperger, it's the call I hate making and I don't know how to say it really. Pip applied for the follow-on course at college for next year, we had a meeting with the staff at the college yesterday, they've refused him a place. It wasn't just because of the incident when Pip hit the other boy. They said he couldn't cope with the study.'

I sat down numb, the following two years of my life had been built around Pip going on the computing course. I knew it would be hard for him but he had so wanted to do it, his college tutor had recommended him for it and now he was turning him down. We chatted about the implications, my hand shaking as I wrote down hurried, meaningless notes, repeating that he had been told by the college to apply. 'They suggest he changes to graphics.' 'But, but he can't do graphics, he's the least artistic person in the universe. He's not up to it, he'd get bored and he wouldn't understand what they wanted him to do,' I reasoned. 'Well yes, I thought that. We need to meet up and discuss his options. I'll phone you tomorrow and arrange something. I'm sorry about all this, will you tell him?' 'He's got an interview at the college tomorrow, I'll have to tell him before then, he'd be too disappointed.'

I went to sit beside Pip, took a deep breath and told him the news. By the next morning he had emailed a formal complaint about the tutor to the college, written a death threat on facebook (I breathed a sigh of relief that the tutor couldn't read it), shouted at me, threatened to confront the tutor the next morning and flounced out of the house.

That morning Pip's speech therapist phoned me, could I come over in about an hour and a half and we could all meet up and discuss what to do with Pip? I drove like the wind, stopping off at Alex's school to drop off the front door keys and a note telling him I would come home later that evening.

We met in the headteacher's office and I made a conscious effort not to cry. There were four of us, huddled together. As we talked through Pip's problems, a hooded head appeared through the window, stared at us then sloped off. 'That's not one of ours, what's he doing on site?' the headteacher walked towards the window 'are there workmen on site?' In one movement she was on the phone, questioning what he was doing. It was clear that wandering children, strange hooded figures and suspicious activities were all part and parcel of a special school and it was clear that the staff were well prepared. Within minutes, the man was escorted off site by two insistent men but the headteacher was watching every move on the field, talking to us with her body turned to the window.

The meeting over, Aaron guided me to the sixth form area, chatting away as we went. 'He's one of our two most difficult students, I have to be honest. Do you remember when he stood outside, refusing to come into school for two days, and I can't even remember what he was protesting about.' My mind flashed back to cold days in winter, with Pip phoning me up, breathless with excitement, he was on a protest, what was it about? I had vague memories of him complaining about one of his teachers, was it Aaron? Bright, funny, charming Aaron, so friendly and chatty, sociability coming so easily to him. No wonder he and Pip didn't get on, one couldn't understand how you make friends and the other couldn't understand how you couldn't make them. Aaron guided me to his office, 'we spent an hour together with Pip's speech therapist, listing why Pip was angry with me and deciding what I had done wrong. He says I wagged my finger at him, is that a particular crime to him?' 'Punishable by the death penalty,' I laughed, enjoying his light hearted company but my mind skipped back to Dr Asperger's incredible demands. 'You know his father is accusing me of making up his diagnosis just to land a meal ticket. He will have to be assessed' 'I know, he keeps on telling us. But you've got a diagnosis, it's for a lifelong condition, it can't be cured, he's got it for life.' he reasoned. A cloud passed over head and I felt suddenly cold, 'I know, ' I shivered.

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the college, asking the special needs department for advice. I found myself laughing as we discussed some of Pip's eccentricities, the insistence upon routine, the inability to entertain himself, his sensory issues and his refusal to ask for help. Pip must have heard me as he skipped out of the college, 'I texted you, didn't you get it, I told you the tutor was a bastard. Why didn't you reply?' he gushed, unaware of my companions. I changed the subject, apologising to the receptionist who stared in amazement at Pip.

On the Saturday morning Pip called me, his voice squeaking with excitement, 'come quick, I've got a response from Andrea. But it doesn't make sense, she says lots of things which aren't true. She knows they are lies and she believes him. Come and read this:

Dear Pip,

I needed some time to think before I replied to your email.

I am not sure why you know details about your parent’s financial circumstances or information about their current court hearings. The fact that you do worries me. Under no circumstances would I dream about asking my parents what their financial circumstances are. The fact that you are writing to me about such information is of deep concern to me.

What is happening between your Mother and Father in relation to their finances is their responsibility and for them to sort out between the two of them.

Your Father and I have discussed starting a family.

I know that you have educational needs. At the moment this means that your Mother chooses not to go out and earn a living.

I have worked with young people who are severely disabled (in wheel chairs) and their Mothers went to work. I have disabilities but these do not stop me from going to working either.

It is very sad that you blame your Father for everything that has gone wrong between your Mother and Father. There are always two sides to every story and nothing in life is black and white. Perhaps one day you will bother to find out.

I know that your Father is a kind, caring and loving man.

Your Father and I have a very happy life together and we do not row or get angry with each other.

Pip, it important to remember that nothing in life is straight forward. Showing forgiveness and compassion for both your Mother and Father is important; they are going through a tough time.

We can only do the best we can… we are all human.

I know that your Mother will read this email.

Regards,
Andrea

By the time that I got to the computer Nina was already there, her face getting redder and redder. 'This is so annoying, I can't believe she wrote that. How can she say that about there being two sides to every story when she's never heard ours. She's never had to live with his temper, she's implying that it was just as much your fault that he hurt you and shouted at you. Did she get left outside bookmakers? Was her father drunk? He's threatening to stop paying maintenance for me in three months time, I've applied for university and she's saying that I have no right to know that. How many times have you had to say to us that you can't afford something because you haven't got any money. That woman had no right to write that to us. And she's rude to poor Pip. I'm going to reply to her just to put the record straight.' I had visions of years of emails going back and forth with Nina and Andrea writing increasingly indignant messages to each other, Nina anxious to protect her own sanity, wanting someone to admit what we had suffered and Andrea carefully protecting the man she loved so fiercely.

For one brief moment I looked at Pip, scowling at his computer and I thought that's what I want, I want a woman like Andrea for my son. Then I remembered that I had been that woman for Jay. I had anxiously protected him from criticism and denied the truth, that he wasn't a man, he was a two dimensional cut out, a man of straw.