Tom Roberts, tall and handsome with thick blond hair and deep blue eyes, was always the only man for me! Our parents were great friends and we grew up as childhood sweethearts in the beautiful Derbyshire countryside, always in and out of each other’s houses and closer than if we’d been brother and sister. I did have a sister, Karen who was two years younger than me and she often tagged along with us, but as we grew into our teenage years, Karen seemed to drift away, still a child when we thought we were so grown up. My relationship with Tom inevitably changed and we looked at each other with new eyes as we grew older, our friendship blossoming into love. His broad smile and intense eyes melted my heart each time we met, and neither of us so much as considered going out with anyone else.
I remember our first magical kiss when we were sixteen. It marked the change in our relationship, the end of puppy love and the beginning of a relationship that I was confident would stand the test of time. Our love was a certainty. Even our parents could see the strength of our feelings and were delighted for us.
When Tom went to university, I studied locally at the technical college, but we still only had eyes for each other, our future destiny together never in doubt. Every weekend Tom travelled home from Manchester University so we could spend as much time together as possible. Tom’s mother often hinted that she too would occasionally like to see her only son. There was never any doubt that we would eventually marry and live in Matlock, where we’d grown up, so when Tom completed his degree in business studies and secured his first job, we became engaged. Our families were delighted and began the exciting task of planning our wedding.
It was a spring wedding in 1985, a week before my twenty-first birthday – and the happiest day of my life. Walking up the gentle incline to St Giles Parish Church on my father’s arm, the sun smiled down on us. Dad beamed with pride, and I almost floated, as if on a cloud, so happy that I thought it was a dream from which I would wake. Daffodils stood to attention on both sides of the path, nodding their approval as I walked between them towards the ancient picturesque church ahead. I felt like the most blessed woman on earth.
Karen was close behind me, lifting the train of my dress and halfway up the path, she tugged me back, laughing and warned me not to be in so much of a hurry, to make the moment last. But I could barely wait to be Tom’s wife. Passing through the vast wooden doors and seeing my future husband waiting for me at the altar, I knew this was only the beginning of a life filled with love and joy. I stood on the threshold of all I’d ever wanted. With the spring sunshine casting shimmering prisms of colour through the stained-glass windows onto the aisle, I stepped into my new and brilliant life.
Perhaps I was naive to imagine that the road ahead would be a smooth and easy path, but that belief was strengthened over the following two years when it proved to be just so. We moved into a quaint stone cottage in Matlock near to my parents and Tom’s widowed mother and set about fashioning it to suit our needs. An endless troupe of workmen shared our first few weeks of residence, encroaching into our privacy, but it was worth it. The kitchen and bathroom were updated, internal walls removed to give the space we wanted, and a new electrical wiring system installed. Tom and I spent every spare hour working to restore our home, helped by family and friends. We lovingly stripped off layer upon layer of paint, polishing the wood which lay beneath until finally, the old place could breathe again. It took most of the first year of our marriage and was a true labour of love, hardly seeming like work at all.
As we worked, we dreamed. The cottage boasted three large bedrooms and from the very day we married, we longed to start a family, to fill those empty rooms and the whole house with the laughter of children, yet for the first three years of our life together, that joy was denied to us.
As is so often typical of the young, we were impatient. Having so much to offer and longing to share it with a child, we decided to adopt, even though it was far too early to give up hope of ever having our own baby. Our love overflowed and we desperately wanted to share it, to encompass a child who needed the love and care of a family.
We eagerly embarked on the unavoidable official process, which seemed arduous and intrusive at times, but we were keen and complied with all that was asked of us to be approved. Eventually, the news we longed for arrived. There was a baby girl who the authorities thought to be a perfect match for us.
Rachel came into our lives. She was nine months old when we first met her, a tiny mite, undernourished and with a haunted look on her little face which no child should have. Her background was one of neglect and squalid conditions which we could hardly bear to contemplate, an injustice we so badly wanted to redress. Because she was so young, the process of settling her into our home was an unusually swift one, unprecedented because of Rachel’s need for stability which we were eager to offer. We quickly took over from her temporary foster carers as her new parents, her forever family, and welcomed her with such love and anticipation, full of hope for the future.
As well as being small for her age, Rachel was unnaturally quiet and we found ourselves strangely longing to hear her cry, while most of the mothers I met at the clinic dearly wished for the opposite. Perhaps, we reasoned, her cries had gone unheard for so long that she’d simply given up trying, except for the odd occasions when she felt physical pain. It was almost a relief when, after a few months, our daughter tentatively tried to walk. On occasions, she fell and hurt herself and we welcomed her cries as a chance to hold and soothe her. But sadly, my arms were never a comfort to Rachel, she fought against physical contact, and I was distraught.
From the very beginning, she was not a baby to seek out cuddles, no matter how much Tom and I tried. When we did pick her up to hold her, her little body would stiffen, her back would arch, and she’d pull away from us with such strength, wriggling to be put down on the floor or into her cot, a stubborn expression of independence on her little cross face.
The social workers shared their suspicions that she’d spent most of her first few months in a cot and so it became her place of safety, rather like a dog retreats to its kennel. My heart ached to hold our daughter, but physical contact was alien to her, abhorrent almost. I longed to hear her laugh when we tried to play with her, but we knew it would take time and we would simply need to have patience.
In the end, it wasn’t me or Tom who released the happy child inside of her, but the new baby who made her appearance almost a year to the day after Rachel became our daughter.
We were overjoyed to discover that I was pregnant, and suddenly the world looked a brighter place as we felt sure that a new baby would melt Rachel’s heart.
It did indeed, and when Jenny was born, our prayers appeared to have been answered. Rachel became the baby’s self-appointed guardian. At not yet two years old, she doted on her little sister, always by her side and wanting to help care for her. So naturally, I allowed her as much involvement as possible and Tom and I were thrilled that our elder daughter, at last, appeared to be happy.
Rachel’s delight in her baby sister continued over the coming months and by the time Jenny was walking, the girls were inseparable and did everything together. Perhaps, as they grew, there were even occasions when I felt somewhat left out as our daughters’ bond was strong and they appeared to need only each other. I berated myself for those petty feelings of jealousy at their closeness.
Generally, life was perfect, even with Tom working long hours to establish his business, and the Peak District was such a beautiful place to live. The girls and I would fill our days with picnics in Hall Leys Park, girly shopping trips to Derby with tea and cake in a cafe, or visiting my parents in Matlock Bath. Life was full and happy. Simple pleasures, like walking in the rain, became adventures, with the girls dressed in their bright yellow raincoats, duck-fashioned wellington boots and frilly umbrellas. Puddles became rivers to splodge in and the wet grass was a rain-forest to explore and hunt for wild animals.
My sister, Karen, and her family lived close by, in the village of Cromford, and we spent many happy times with them on the historic Birdswood narrowboat, lazily drifting along the Cromford Canal. By that time, Karen and her husband, James, a local GP, had their own daughter. Beth was born a year before Jenny, so the three girls were close in age and loved to spend time together. I couldn’t have wished for a more charmed life and with Tom’s business doing so well, I could stay at home with our daughters and concentrate solely on raising them.
By the time the girls were all at school, Karen and I could finally indulge our long-held dream of opening a tea shop in Matlock. We would meet each week at Scarthin Books, a delightful antiquarian bookshop in Cromford, housed in an ancient, atmospheric building with a narrow staircase leading to an upstairs coffee shop. After browsing the many hundreds of books and buying not a few, we would follow the tempting aroma of freshly ground coffee, treat ourselves to some of their irresistible cherry scones, and plan our future endeavour.
Karen was an excellent cook, her cakes and pastries were to die for, and I would enjoy working front of house and keeping the books, although Tom would undoubtedly help on that score. Those early days of planning were exciting and we looked forward to the day when our dream would become a reality. My life was as light, colourful and beautiful as a perfect soap bubble, but I was to learn, the hard way, that it was also every bit as fragile.
I was totally unprepared for the fallout when the bubble of my flawless life burst.
