Anne's Song (17 page)

'I don't know,' he'd say. 'Who can foretell the future?'

He'd become unrecognisable from the man I'd married. If I'd met him for the first time at that point in his life, I wouldn't have had anything to do with him. We still spoke occasionally on the phone, usually in connection with the girls, but I couldn't be civil to him. I was so hurt by what he'd done. I just couldn't accept that he'd cast aside everything we'd had. I was angry, very, very angry, but I still wouldn't accept that our marriage couldn't somehow be salvaged. In my head – and in my heart – we'd had such a great marriage and I still loved him. Surely there was a way back.

One evening, I was out buying a pint of milk when I happened to see Brian climb into a taxi. My heart seemed to stop beating. Where was he going at this time of night – and by cab? I was in the car and I didn't hesitate. I followed him at a discreet distance. Eventually, he got out of the taxi at a Chinese takeaway, went in and bought some food and then walked a little way down the road and through an alleyway into one of two houses, I couldn't be sure which. There was a tricycle in the garden of one of them; the other was a bit dilapidated with a sheet instead of a curtain at one window. It was midnight by now and I didn't want to knock on the wrong front door, so I decided to return home.

I phoned him the next day.

I said, 'I saw you last night, going into somebody's house with a Chinese takeaway.'

'Oh yes,' he said, 'that's where John Long lives. Were you following me?'

'Yes,' I said.

'So how do you feel now?' he asked.

'A bit like a lunatic,' I replied, truthfully. 'What do you expect?'

'Anyway,' he said, 'now you know.' And he put the phone down.

I've said it before, but never was it more true than at this moment. Work was to prove my saviour. If ever I needed to be taken out of myself, it was right now. Maureen and I were no longer performing as the Nolans, but we'd been booked to appear in a revival show called
Reelinandarockin'
with stars from the sixties like Gerry Marsden, Mike d'Abo, Dave Berry, Brian Poole, Dave Dee, and Mike Pender from The Searchers. We had no work and then we'd been approached by an agent we knew called Derek Franks who told us about this tour but who said he wouldn't insult us by offering it because the pay was poor. On the other hand, some money was better than none at all and the gig sounded fun. So we said yes. Maureen and I were only the backing singers, but we had a great time. On and off over the next couple of years, we toured the UK, three times in all; we took the show to Jersey; we did a stint on the
QE2;
we went to Australia twice and to New Zealand and Singapore, too. I loved being with my sister. She was such an incredible support to me as I tried to hold my emotions in check. We'd share the same room. We'd go out together during the day. We'd perform side by side each evening. But then all my sisters rallied round me in my hour of need. I remember I called Coleen out of the blue on one lonely evening and she immediately insisted I come round to her house where I talked and cried and talked some more.

Maureen and I were responsible for all the back-up singing and we loved it. We just sang harmonies and there was no pressure on us. They were probably no more than ten years older than us, but all these old rockers treated us like kids. They were so protective, so supportive. We also had a ten-minute spot on our own. It was fabulous and such a breath of fresh air after my cancer scare and the unravelling of my marriage. The show was also providing much-needed income. At this stage, Brian was still paying half the mortgage, but I had to pay all the other household bills and for the food I put on the table.

It was while we were away on one of these gigs that I got a call from Brian one day out of the blue. He was still living in his miserable little flat.

He said, 'I've just received a text from somebody saying, "I bet your wife won't be in the mood for dancing now." And I wanted to tell you.'

I told him I didn't know what he was talking about.

'Well, I've been taking this girl out,' he went on. 'Just a couple of times for a meal and to the races. Obviously, we've been seen together and now someone's sent this message making out you're not going to be happy.'

I couldn't be bothered with his nonsense. 'It's got nothing to do with me,' I said. 'Brian, we're not with each other any more. Why are you worrying? Just tell them to mind their own business.' But of course inside I felt desperately hurt and upset.

It didn't take me long to find out it had been this new girlfriend's house he'd been to with the Chinese takeaway. So I drove back to the road where I'd seen him and parked opposite the alleyway. In time, a woman who looked to be in her late thirties came out of one of the houses. She was small – no more than five foot – slim and dressed in Jumper and jeans.

I got out of the car and ran across to her. My heart was hammering in my chest. I was curious to see at close hand the person who was, to all intents and purposes, my love rival.

I said, 'Hi, my name's Anne Wilson.'

She said, 'Oh, you're Brian's wife.' She didn't seem remotely threatened by me. She was cool, controlled. 'I feel so sorry for you. Come inside. We can have a chat.'

I looked at her. I remember thinking that she was obviously trying to be nice. Then I pulled myself together. 'I'm not being funny,' I said, 'but you're carrying on with my husband. I don't want to chat with you. I'm never going to be your friend. For what it's worth, though, you're welcome to my husband. Our marriage is over.'

The woman had no shame. 'Oh, I know that,' she said. 'He told me he's never loved you.' She had no idea whether Brian had said any such thing to me. 'Anyway,' she continued, 'he's filing for divorce.'

I pretended I was perfectly well aware of that, but it wasn't true. Brian had mentioned nothing about officially ending the marriage and, although I told her it was over, a part of me still hoped against hope that Brian and I could salvage something from this nightmare situation. I stumbled back to the car, trying not to let her see my tears.

In a way, I got my own back – not that I planned it like that – when I confronted the two of them a few weeks later. They'd obviously been drinking, and I admit I was in a blind rage.

'Never mind about you filing for divorce,' I said, poking my finger at Brian. 'I'll get in before you – and I know who I'll be citing.'

'You do just that,' said his girlfriend. 'You can cite me. I'm not bothered.'

'Oh, I won't be citing you,' I said. 'I'll be citing the woman he took to Lindisfarne.'

That stopped her in her tracks. She looked at Brian and he just groaned.

I was later told by Ritchie, who'd always been a close mate of Brian's, that Brian had immediately taken his girlfriend round to the woman in question's house and had got her to swear that nothing had ever gone on between them.

That was no real victory, though. I'd been lashing out, trying to hurt the man I'd once loved so deeply. I wanted so much to reach him, to shake him out of what I fervently hoped would prove to be a temporary aberration.

I'd see his car parked outside the working men's club and I'd go and ask if Brian was in the back office. I'd walk in and he'd be at his desk. He'd look horrendous: dishevelled, tired, unshaven, bleary-eyed. I remember I once marched in and sat down on the chair opposite him.

'What do you want?' he said. 'Go away!'

I said, 'No, I'm not going away, Brian. I want to talk to you.'

He started shouting, 'Leave me alone. Please go away. I can't handle this.'

But I wouldn't. I walked to the office door and closed it. 'Calm down,' I said. 'We need to talk. Do you love her?' I asked.

'Yes,' he said, 'I love her.'

'Are you in love with her, though?'

He hesitated for about ten seconds. 'Yes,' he said, eventually. 'Now leave here. Please.' And he put his head in his hands. I thought he was going to cry. 'I can't handle this,' he said. 'It's not fair.'

Up until then, I'd felt we could probably sort out our problems on our own, but now I could see him slipping away from me. I started crying uncontrollably.

'Could I have a hug, please?' I said, desperate for some kind of contact with him.

He came round from behind his desk and took me briefly in his arms. Then he pushed me towards the door. 'Right, now go!' he said.

Two nights after that incident, I woke up in the small hours, my head spinning. I came downstairs and started writing Brian a letter. I've still got a copy of it. I told him he was everything to me: my brother, my father, my lover, my husband, my best friend. He used to tell me that he couldn't wait until we grew old, so that we could sell the house and go round the world in our own Winnebago. 'What's happened to all of that?' I wrote. I also told him that when I sang 'Wind Beneath My Wings', I was singing it to him because the words so perfectly summed up our relationship. This was the first time that anything had ever gone wrong in our marriage. I implored him not to turn his back on it, on us. I know this was rather a Hollywood flourish but I begged him, 'Please don't let this be the way our story ends.' Finally, I told him that I felt he owed it to me and all the happy years we'd spent together to give marriage counselling at least one try. 'Whatever you want,' I said, 'we'll do it on your terms.' I was trying to be as flexible as I knew how.

Brian never acknowledged the letter, never replied to it. His silence was deafening. It seemed that he had no interest in trying to resurrect our marriage.

Emotionally, I was all over the place. I just didn't know how I'd ever be able to think straight again, to get myself on an even keel. On one occasion soon afterwards, I phoned him ninety times in a single evening after I'd been out with friends and drunk too much. I'd get through to his answering machine, hang up and redial. Alone in the house, I'd hurl things at the wall. How dare he treat me like this! This was the man who was going to grow old with me.

I couldn't sleep. So I'd get in the car and go and park it outside his girlfriend's house and stare up at the bedroom window. She was ten years younger than Brian, sixteen years younger than me. One night, something inside me snapped. 1 was in the car and I was driving aimlessly around. It was raining hard, but I deliberately turned off the wipers and put my foot on the accelerator. I couldn't see anything beyond the windscreen. My life felt meaningless. I wanted out. I doubt I drove like that for more than thirty seconds, but I could have been killed and I could have killed someone else. It wasn't a rational act and I'm certainly not proud of it. Only thoughts of Amy and Alex left without their mother brought me back to something like my senses.

Even so, I couldn't get out of my head that Brian had been with me for twenty-seven years, married for twenty-four, a loving husband always there for me. He might have fallen out of love with me at the end, but ours had been such a happy marriage and he'd been a wonderful father. He couldn't do enough for his girls. So who knows what went wrong? I don't believe it was what my father had done and feel angry that this was Brian's reason for the breakdown. If he'd felt so bad about the prospect of Amy and Alex being left alone with their granddad, why did he stand by and let it happen?

I just can't accept that the guilt of his actions – or, rather, his lack of action as he stayed silent – preyed and preyed on his mind. Even if it had, why take it out on me? It wasn't my fault I'd been abused. I had nothing to defend myself with when he picked that up as a stick with which to beat me all those years later. It once again demonstrated how something as evil as what my father did to me never really goes away. I was abused at twelve. Here I was, over forty years later, and that abuse was indirectly responsible for ending my marriage to a man I loved with all of my heart.

Not that Brian seemed the same man any more. People would tell me that he looked a mess as he wandered the streets. He'd been officially diagnosed by this stage as clinically depressed: his doctor had prescribed a course of antidepressants. Brian would call members of my family and leave rambling messages. One day, he turned up at Maureen's house. 'You can do what you want,' he told her, 'but you Nolans are never going to get me.' The combination of trying to make a success of his business, our spiralling debts and the fact I'd been battling cancer had proved too much for him to handle.

Nor has he ever returned to being the man I knew and loved. The girls see him from time to time and they say he's changed. In a strange way, that's a comfort to me. I couldn't bear it if he'd gone back to being the old Brian and still didn't want to be with me. As it is, it seems to me he had a major midlife crisis which he survived, but it changed him for ever. I'll never get over it, though. I loved him so much. It seems unbelievable to me that it should come to this. How much happier do you have to be to stay together?

You can only divorce in less than five years by mutual consent, and, initially at least, I wasn't prepared to give him that consent. I didn't want the marriage to end and, while I wouldn't want him back now, I didn't see why I should make it easy for him. Any thought that I might do as he asked evaporated the moment I read his divorce petition. My eyes practically popped out of my head. It was horrendous. I didn't recognise most of what he was saying. When I showed it to my sisters and then to my daughters, they all reacted in the same way. They were horrified.

For legal reasons I can't say here what the petition claimed. Needless to say I deeply disagreed with the content and was terribly hurt by it.

It was too late now, though. I had to face it: my marriage was over.

Amy was at home one day when her father telephoned. He was worried, he said, that I'd go mad when I received the petition, so she better be prepared. She calmly replied that the petition had arrived a week earlier.

'What did she say?' Brian asked.

'Nothing,' said Amy. 'She just filed it away.'

The truth is that all the charges he'd laid at my door didn't make me angry; they made me sad. When I phoned him, I told him we both knew that none of what he'd claimed in the divorce petition was true.