Pedigree Crush With a Twist of Passion: chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

They returned from their honeymoon tanned and happy. Donald picked them up from the airport to take them to the hotel. Julie felt as though she had been away from their house forever. As every mile took them closer to the Halcyon Woods, she felt her mood dropping. The honeymoon had been like a wonderful, sexy, loved up dream, but now, sitting in the car, it was as though Julie had ceased to exist. She reached for Phil’s hand but, within seconds, he shook her off to indicate a point about jet skiing to his father.
Phil recounted virtually every minute of their time away, bar the intimate stuff of course. He told him every conversation he’d had, every meal they’d eaten, and gave a blow by blow account as though he were under police interrogation. When they got into the hotel and met for drinks with Violet and the two brother’s who were there, he went through it all from the beginning again. Julie didn’t want to share the details of her honeymoon with his family. It was theirs, it was special and private. She realised that she was being petulant but Phil barely spoke to her all night. When he was telling his very Catholic parents about the monastery on the hill above Paleokastritsa, Julie couldn’t resist butting in. ‘Oh, you should have seen the votive room,’ she said, her eyes sparkling. ‘It was amazing, so spiritual. Something entered me in that room.’ Violet seemed pleased with her spiritual birth but Phil didn’t see the funny side. His lips straightened into a single, thin line. She’d seen the look before and knew he was angry with her. He was very sensitive about Julie’s humour when it was aimed in his mother’s direction.
That night, Phil stayed up late with SP and James. He drank too much. Julie was tired and wanted to go to bed, but the alcohol flowed and finally she left him to his drunken revelry and went to bed alone. She woke alone and bar the foo-foo dress and stale vomit, it was a repeat of the last time they’d stayed at the hotel. This time Julie breakfasted alone in the dining room and then went in search of her husband. Again she found him laid out on a brother’s sofa, in a brother’s room. This time he was in James’ quarters. He sneered at her when he opened the door. ‘Well, well,’ he said, leering at her. ‘Aren’t you the dark horse? I’ve been hearing all about you. Let me know if you ever fancy giving the more experienced brother a run around the block.’ He winked at her, and Julie felt sickened by his smutty innuendo. Of Phil’s brothers, James was the one she liked the least. He was hard and nasty. He didn’t like her and made no secret of the fact.
Julie glared at him but otherwise ignored his remarks. ‘Is Philip here?’ she asked frostily.
He opened the door wider to let her in; gesturing towards the sofa with Phil sprawled across it. ‘Don’t worry love. I was only joking. You’re not my type.’ His lip curled away from his teeth as he watched her kneel beside Phil and shake him awake.
‘I suspect anybody willing to give out, would be your type. I feel so sorry for Tammy being married to a pig like you.’
Phil was waking and had only heard Julie’s response to James’s slur. He was instantly defensive of his brother. ‘Julie, why are you speaking to James like that? Don’t blame him for keeping me out all night. I did that off my own back.’
‘Yeah, Jules, don’t blame me. I’m a good influence, I am.’
‘Go fuck yourself,’ said Julie and instantly regretted it when she saw Phil’s face. He went into one of his moods and barely spoke to her for the rest of the day.
It was so good to get back to their own house, even if Phil only answered her when he absolutely had to. Julie had given her mother a key and had asked her to come in and clean the place up while they were away on honeymoon. The house was gleaming. Not realising that Julie and Phil didn’t share a bedroom; Zoe had only cleaned the master bedroom. But it was made with fresh bedding and Julie couldn’t wait to get into it. She wondered if her husband would be moving into her room now, or if he would continue to sleep alone. After sharing a bed with him for ten days in Corfu, she hoped that he would be going back to the privacy of his own room. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since before she got married.
Phil dropped their cases in the hall and wandered from room to room. He went into the downstairs bathroom and turned in a circle. ‘Julie,’ he shouted ‘somebody’s been in the house. All of my stuff’s been moved around.’
‘Yes, isn’t it lovely and clean? I gave mum a key and asked her to give the place a once over while we were away. I thought it would be a nice surprise for you to come home to.’ Julie’s voice came and went in clarity as she set to making coffee and tea in their immaculately clean kitchen. She was thinking about the last time she’d seen it, with champagne bottles, makeup products, the remains of a cooked breakfast, even though Anne had washed up, and all kinds of other general untidiness that Phil would have gone mad about.
‘Mind you, considering the state of the place when we left, she’s excelled herself,’ Julie continued, we can go and visit her tomorrow and we’ll take her some flowers to thank her.’
Phil came into the kitchen. His face was scrunched up with rage and bright red. He slammed a can of deodorant onto the marble island with such force that Julie wanted to check beneath it for damage. In his other hand he had one of his shirts, presumably dirty, perhaps taken out of the downstairs wash basket. He threw it at her and when it hit her full in the face, and hung there, covering her like a Muslim lady’s niqab, she could smell her husband in the material. She pulled it away from her, astonished. Phil had already begun to yell. She’d never seen him so angry.
‘Don’t you ever, ever let anybody into my house without my permission again. Who do you think you are?’
‘Your house?’ she said repeating the question again for good measure. ‘And here’s me thinking that we were an equal partnership and that this is our house. What’s the matter with you? Mum’s done a fantastic job for us.’
‘She’s been through my things. I don’t like anybody touching my things, do you understand?’ His voice had dropped in decibel as he explained how he felt, but as he got to the end of his rant it rose again as he was engulfed by his sense of injustice. ‘What right have you got to give somebody that I barely know a key to my house? Anything could have gone missing.’
‘Phil, you’re talking about my mother,’ she screamed. ‘I can’t believe that you’ve just accused my mother of stealing from us. What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Well they’re always hard up, aren’t they? I want that key back. Today,’ he emphasised. ‘In fact, no, don’t bother. Let her keep it, along with whatever else she took. You do realise that I’m going to have to have all the locks changed, don’t you?’
‘Don’t be so fucking ridiculous. She’s my mother. I’d trust her with my life. How can you say such horrible things? She only did this to help us. I’m upset, Philip. I don’t know how I’m going to get passed the fact that you’ve just called my mother a thief.’ Her bottom lip quivered and she pushed past him to go into the lounge. It was spotless and smelled of orange zest. She sat on the end of one of the plush red sofas and curled her feet up beside her. She held the cup of coffee between her hands, and sipped at it without tasting the comforting bitterness of the beans. She wanted to throw it at him.
He’d followed her through and was standing above her now, still yelling. ‘Come on, Julie, look at them, they live in a council flat. Christ, it’s not even a full house with two storeys. It’s not as though I’m actually saying that she took something, all that I’m saying is that they need the money. She might have been tempted, that’s all. And I’ll thank you not to swear. You know how it makes you sound like a guttersnipe, which rather goes to prove my point about the council flat mentality.’
‘You snob. You fucking, bastard snob.’ She put her coffee down on the table, not forgetting to take a coaster from the dispenser first. The mug was feeling far too much like a weapon. ‘Leave me alone,’ she said in a tight voice. She was working hard to keep herself under control. ‘I don’t want to be anywhere near you, right now.’
‘See? Can’t take it, can you? You can say what you like about my mother. My mother, incidentally, who paid for our wedding, but the moment that I dare to criticise the glorious Zoe, you take it personally. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.’
He stalked out of the room.
‘You get back here. Don’t you dare walk out on me you pompous dickhead. I have barely said a thing about your precious mother, considering that she called me an AIDS ridden, gold digging, heroin addict. But look at you, eh? Showing your true colours now, aren’t you? Like mother, like fucking son. She’s a money-minded, pretentious snob and you’re just like her. You’re certainly your mother’s son. Go on, fuck off and sulk, cry baby. Mummy’s boy.’ Phil straightened his back. Jutted out his chin and left. Julie heard him going up the stairs and into his small bedroom. She burst into tears.
The next morning, Phil knocked on her bedroom door. He came in without waiting for a response. He had breakfast on a tray, and a hard on. He apologised and admitted that he’d greatly overreacted. Of course he trusts her family, he told her. She apologised too. They ate breakfast, had unsatisfying sex, as far as Julie was concerned, and put the argument behind them. Phil smiled at her and said that he’d be moving his things into the master bedroom that morning. Julie’s heart sank.
It was their last day off before they both went back to work. Julie worked in a factory making chipboards and Phil was a maintenance fitter and team leader in the shipyard. Before they left for their honeymoon, he had just applied for a promotion to foreman. He was looking forward to getting back to see if the interviews had been arranged. Julie couldn’t wait to see all of her mates and was looking forward to getting back to work too, but they were still both struck with a bad case of post holiday blues. Phil took her out to dinner. The food was rich and he droned on about things which interested him and left her wishing the night would end, and then she remembered that Phil was moving into their bed and she wished that the night would continue forever. But she’d still rather have been at the pub drinking lager with her mates and having a laugh. She reminded herself that she was a married woman now, and that all of that was behind her. She had responsibilities and drinking poncy wine in a posh restaurant was one of them. It could have been worse. He might have taken her to dinner at the Halcyon.
She woke up the following morning wet from her husband’s sweat, exhausted and nauseous. Philip had already left for work. She felt guilty for not being the perfect wife and getting up to see him off with a cooked breakfast. He hadn’t woken her. She met up with Karen, her best mate, at the bus stop. The mid-May morning was gorgeous and the sun was shining. She told Karen all about their honeymoon, especially the sex, and she instantly felt better.
‘At least one of us is getting plenty,’ said Karen with a laugh. She caught Julie’s anxious expression and looked at her sharply, ‘What’s the matter? Isn’t it good?’
‘Not really. Well, yes, sometimes it’s great. If I just want a quickie. That time in the monastery was the best sex ever. But it’s just that…Well, he wants it so often. He’s at me for sex all the time and it never varies. He’s in, wham, bang, thank you ma’am, and out and it’s all over. And he’s so rough.’
‘Hell, don’t knock it, mate. I wish I had a man who wanted me that much. Ed would choose the footie over shagging me, any day. Get it while you can, ’cause I promise you, that honeymoon period soon wears off.’
The bus pulled in to the stop and they got on. ‘As to it being a bit boring,’ Karen continued, ‘I wish I had a virgin to play with. If it’s boring, that’s your fault, mate. You need to show him what you want.’
‘Suppose,’ agreed Julie, quickly changing the conversation because the bus was crowded and she didn’t want details of her sex life spread all over town.

Six weeks after coming home from their honeymoon, Julie discovered that she was pregnant. Phil, far from flinging his arms around her in delight, seemed shell shocked. ‘How did that happen?’ he asked in a daze.
‘How do you think it happened, Einstein? You don’t believe in using any form of contraception. I thought this was what you wanted.’ She felt tears stinging her eyes. This wasn’t going at all how she’d imagined it. ‘We discussed it. You said you wanted us to start a family.’
‘Yes, but…I didn’t think it would be so quick. I thought it would take longer. I’ve only just got my promotion. I wanted to save some money first. We’ve only been married a few weeks. How did it happen so fast?’ he repeated.
‘God, Phil, it only takes once. If I’d known you were going to react like this I’d have gone on the pill.’
‘That’s a wicked thing to say. You know it’s against my religion.’
‘Yes, but it’s not against mine. Oh my God, I’m carrying a baby that you don’t want.’ She burst into tears.
Phil put his arms around her. ‘Shush, shush now, don’t be silly. Of course I want it,’ she looked up at him.
‘You do?’ she asked with tear-streaked cheeks.
‘Yes, of course I do. It was just a shock, that’s all. I’m delighted that we’re having a baby.’ He picked her up, swung her around and whooped in delight. Julie dried her eyes. This was more like it.
They arranged a special dinner to tell their parents. Richard and Zoe were delighted. This was their first grandchild. Zoe cried and Richard beamed and hugged Julie. Richard pumped Phil’s hand saying, ‘Well done lad,’ over and over again, making Phil blush and glance at his own parents.
After a curt, congratulations, Donald didn’t really react at all. They might as well have announced that they’d bought a new pan set in the Debenham’s sale. Violet’s face was grim. Julie had seen the same expression many times on Phil’s face. She looked with distaste at her and only applied a false smile when she was addressed for her feelings by Zoe, who was still trilling like an excited budgie. Julie wondered if Violet was disgusted that she was having a baby or that her youngest child was no longer a virgin.
Every week, Zoe came to the house with a little set of vests, or a couple of bibs. Violet bought an enormous silver cross coach-built pram that took up most of the lounge. ‘If I’m going to be pushing it, no grandchild of mine will be seen in one of those modern monstrosities. All of mine had coach-built. There simply is no other option.’ Julie secretly christened it her Big, Fat Gypsy Pram and bought a cheap stroller from eBay for when Violet wasn’t around.
Phil was present at the birth when Victoria-Violet Woods was born. Julie was looking at him when the midwife placed his child in his arms. His face was sullen. He’d wanted a boy. Despite Julie constantly telling him that it could just as easily be a girl, he would not listen. Phil only ever thought of his child in the male gender classification, any other flavour was simply not going to happen. He wanted a son and that son was going to have his name, Philip John Woods Jr.
Julie had said at the time that if it was a boy, she wanted him to have his own name, and his own identity, but Phil’s ego regarding his future son would brook no argument. At each scan, he eagerly asked the technician what sex the baby was. Julie had explicitly had it written into her records that she didn’t want to know the sex of their baby. She’d sneakily asked that Phil not be told either. If it was a girl she wanted him to have time to get used to the notion that it might not be a boy. Julie knew that the second he held his child in his arms for the first time, any thoughts he’d had about gender would fade into insignificance.
They didn’t. Phil had planned for a son.
And he didn’t want a girl.