Please Let It Stop (7 page)

I did make an attempt to seek help through relationship counselling, which he agreed to come to. Deep down I realised that it was going to be almost impossible to resolve our situation: this wasn’t just an obstacle in the marriage of two kindred spirits, this was about the fact that one of us was making a major life transition and was, in effect, becoming somebody completely different. There were three major issues between us, any one of which would have tested a relationship: Tony wanted a family more than anything; I was becoming a career girl with big dreams; and I had a new, unstoppable confidence.

In 1986 we moved to Chaldon to an old school house with an air raid shelter in the garden that was perfect for Tony to run his new business from. It was a really sweet, gorgeous house and we’d fallen in love with it. When I tell
you it was called ‘Willey Broom’ you can see why there was no question we had to have it! The move seemed to give Tony extra impetus and he did his best to spoil me, but the relationship was beyond repair. He’d hoped that the new house and his foray into lingerie manufacturing would give us a fresh start but while it momentarily revved things up, it was never going to address the longer-term issues. Our relationship was slowly disintegrating and any measures we were taking just seemed to further highlight the deep divisions in the way we saw our lives. It hadn’t helped that I’d had such a dysfunctional childhood that I married earlier than I should.

One evening in November 1988 we were invited to dinner at a friend’s place in Sevenoaks and as I looked around at her cosy little flat, I began to envy her independence. I felt trapped and at that moment I knew I just wanted to break free and live my life again. Back home, we ended up having a big row and Tony went for a drive in his car to cool down. While he was gone I quickly packed a suitcase and went to my dad’s for two weeks; Tony seemed to be on the phone every five minutes trying to persuade me to come back. I told him the marriage was over and that I loved him but I had outgrown the relationship. Both my loyalty to Tony and my perfectionist streak meant that my family had no idea we had any problems so it came as a shock to them. We had a good time – ten years in all – but I definitely think I married too young. Looking back, it
feels as though I was the youngest twenty-year-old ever to get married. Tony remarried, has a family and is a wonderful husband and father. We remained friends and still meet up for lunch every now and then.

While I had loved Tony, our relationship was very much one that reflected the place I was in at the time. Back then I was a young, inexperienced girl who’d lived this stifled, traumatic life inside the walls of her own home. I had only stepped out into the world when I started part-time work and, compared to other fifteen- or sixteen-year-olds, did not have the normal range of experiences: I didn’t know what it was like to socialise normally, let alone how to conduct a relationship. Tony was my Prince Charming: good-looking, hard working and stable, he also provided the most wonderful reason for me to escape my mother’s house. Perhaps if I had been more streetwise and confident, I might have waited longer to get married. Or I might not have married at all. However, I have no regrets: it was an important time in my life. I outgrew the relationship and, although it was painful for both of us at the time, it could have been worse if I had not had the courage to understand what was going on. I think once you realise that things have irretrievably changed, anything else after that is pretending. You are being dishonest both to yourself and to the other person. I know it’s easy to stay with something familiar and even to convince yourself that is what you
really want because the thought of the world out there is terrifying. So is the thought of potentially hurting someone else. All I can say is that you will hurt them more if you stay with them under false pretences.

CHAPTER FOUR

After Tony and I split up in November 1988 all I wanted to do was live in my own flat, just like my friend in Sevenoaks. I found a new two-bedroom property in Croydon which cost £90,000. I lived there for two years and finally felt I was in charge and in control of my life. I had money, I had my own furniture and most importantly I now had the independence I had been seeking since childhood. I also had my sister, Vanessa. As children we were not as close as we might have been if there was perhaps only a three- or four-year age gap. Seven years between us meant that we had not really had the chance to establish any common ground. It was not until she was sixteen and I was twenty-three and married to Tony that we became friends. One day she came over to the house where Tony and I lived in Biggin Hill and something wonderful happened: we found each other.

She was standing with me in an upstairs bedroom while I sorted through bags of jumpers and clothes for some of
the parties we were trying out at the time. I don’t know why I did it but I suddenly asked her whether everything was all right at home. It started as a very awkward conversation with us both skirting around the taboo subject that we had never previously discussed. Neither of us spoke directly about the abuse we had suffered as children but enough was said for us to understand each other. It was one of those moments of recognition, where we both realised how important we were to each other and how we had so much in common, not just as sisters, but as people. We didn’t need to spell it all out verbally: we just both instinctively knew we had a bond that could not be broken.

While I was working on this book, I asked her how she felt and she expressed the moment beautifully: ‘For me that was the day that the age gap closed between us and I met and fell in love with my sister. In my mind that sealed our friendship forever – I was no longer alone.’ But it was in that same conversation that Vanessa also told me how painful it was when I left home to be with Tony. Her description of it makes me cry.

One of my most painful early memories was the day you left home – I suppose I must have been about eleven – and although there may have been a build-up to the day you left, in my mind it seemed like one minute you were there and the next you were gone. I don’t remember any big goodbye, any hugs or any words being spoken, just emptiness. I can’t say
we were particularly close at that time – I am sure the age gap must have felt huge which I am sure was normal for siblings but the devastation I felt still stays with me today and even while writing these words I am fighting back the tears.

I felt so alone at home. When you were there you were both company for me and a buffer against him. After you left all I remember is the constant tension in the house, the aggression, the fighting and the hard work. We have often discussed the fact that my being feisty probably protected me from any unwanted attention but I had no idea what you were going through at the time. There must be some basic instinct that you have as a child because I would do anything not to be left in the house with him on my own after you left. I also begged Mum not to leave me at home alone with him but more often than not she would.

Vanessa tells me that well before John had ever tried anything on with her she was instinctively aware that something wasn’t right with him. There were the cuddles on the sofa but only when Mum wasn’t there or the way he would creep up to the bedroom at the top of the house very quietly when she was getting undressed for bed. Like me, she had this constant feeling of dread when he was around. He cornered her one day in the pool shed at the bottom of the garden and this time it went beyond kisses. She says she can remember the smell of the chlorine that was stored in there, the tools on the shed wall and the way the light
struggled to poke through the two small grimy windows on the left-hand side. She knew what he did was wrong. She just didn’t know what to do about it.

When my marriage broke up Vanessa was there for me. Since then we have seen each other through joy, drama, sadness and some seriously fun times. Vanessa had enjoyed her time at school and followed it up with secretarial college. At one time she wanted to do something with aero-planes. She often talked about being an air traffic controller or an airline pilot, a direction which she obviously picked up from my father’s love of flying planes. At the same time she was always being told by friends how beautiful she was – she’s blonde with large, almond eyes, gorgeous olive skin and a fantastic figure – and they suggested she should model, so she joined an agency and did this for a while. She also did some modelling for Ann Summers but it was not something she wanted to pursue in a major way. In 1983 she joined me in the business. She was looking for pocket money so I started her off in the post room and she soon became one of the operators on our orderline.

Vanessa moved around the company and was eventually reporting directly to me. There were times when she forgot we were in a business relationship and she would cross boundaries – as when she burst into my office unannounced to tell me she was angry about something, but then she was at that time only seventeen. She soon realised that this sort of behaviour wasn’t appropriate for the office. Like me, she has
worked in many different areas of the business including, marketing, design and buying and merchandising, which has given her a wealth of knowledge across the whole business. Vanessa has always shown great passion and commitment towards Ann Summers and in 2000 I was very proud to be able to promote her to Buying Director. She excels in many areas especially product development, which is critical to our business, and negotiating – thanks, to Vanessa, we now have one of the best margins on the high street. She is a great communicator at all levels which has been particularly valuable when dealing with councils. If you have members of your family working for you, you need to establish that a job in the business is an opportunity, rather than a birthright, and Vanessa has earned her position in the company.

When we’re not working we both love getting dressed up and going out. We had both lived such a sheltered life that the times Vanessa came around to my house in Chaldon in the 1980s to go out were a major event in themselves. We would spend a lot of time getting ready, listening to music and chatting. In some ways the drive to the bar or club was the most exciting part – this was hardly surprising, given that the night out would consist of the two of us driving to the place, going in, ordering a soft drink and waiting on the side of the dance floor for either Taylor Dayne’s ‘Tell It To My Heart’ or Womack & Womack’s ‘Teardrops’ before leaving to go home! We still laugh about it to this day.

As our world has become bigger and we have expanded our social horizons, we’ve had some very amusing times. One of these happened at the Emporium nightclub in Leicester Square in the late 1990s. Vanessa and I were meeting our friend Anna-Marie and she’d invited us into the club’s VIP area. As we entered we didn’t realise that the bouncer needed to stamp our hand as proof of entry, so when we left our bags, coats and champagne to go and have a dance we were horrified to find on our return that he wouldn’t let us back in. I tried to explain the situation in my normal business-like manner, but he was a typical ‘jobsworth’ with a serious power attitude and refused to even listen to what I had to say. Vanessa then went to the bar, hoping to find somebody more helpful. In my wisdom (and out of sheer desperation) I had taken a long run at the steps leading to the VIP area, hoping to dodge the six-foot bouncer. Vanessa says she has no idea what I thought I would achieve but I succeeded in being caught, lifted and manhandled to the dance floor with the words ‘you are barred’. Vanessa could only look on with horror.

All was not lost. A few minutes later a smartly dressed gentleman appeared and asked what was wrong – on explaining our predicament, he clicked his fingers at the bouncer who begrudgingly let us back into the VIP area. The gentleman then invited us into another room, advising us that a prince from India wanted to have a drink with Vanessa. Out of curiosity we went into this private room,
where a man was sitting on his own surrounded by an entourage of about twenty men. It was a unique experience but we soon got bored and Vanessa was desperately trying to think of a polite way to make our escape. She leant over to the prince and told him it was time to go as her sister had had a little too much to drink – he offered his driver to take us home but when she declined he stood up and said he would escort us to the front door. As she passed by me she told me to act drunk as this was our way of leaving. With that, the prince, Vanessa, his bodyguard and I made our way to the front of the club. In my haste I grabbed the banister which was an unfixed rope, lost my footing and fell down the stairs. Vanessa came to help me and whispered in my ear, ‘I said act drunk, but not
that
drunk!’

I suppose it may be because of my professional position, but many people seem to think I am the sensible sister when, in truth, that title should belong to Vanessa (but I’m not supposed to say that). While I may be in control professionally, it is she who often takes charge socially. In 1998, when I was newly single, Vanessa and I were on our way to a bar in Croydon with a friend called Leigh. I was listening intently to the stories Leigh was telling us in the car, all about her one-night stands. At the time the concept of a one-night stand was unknown to me; I had never had one. Vanessa was watching me and told me later that she could already see this was a dangerous subject, given my new single status. When we got to the bar I was keen to continue
the discussion but Vanessa, concerned that the discussion may lead to some sort of action, decided to step in. My dreams of a wild night of passion with a handsome stranger were quickly dashed as Vanessa said in her most sensible and slightly alarmed voice, ‘Jacqueline …
not
in Croydon!’

Our love of girlie nights of getting ready with loud music and a glass or two of rosé hasn’t changed one bit over the years. These days we have a great group of girlfriends, a much wider love of music, loads more confidence and no longer seem to have problems getting onto the VIP list! As with all relationships, there are days where we are grumpy with each other, but they are few. We see each other almost every day – our offices are next door to each other and there will always be time for a quick catch up at least once during the day as we both attend to our various meetings and commitments. We have dinner at least once a week with Dad and often again on our own. Then there are the shopping trips – we are both girlie girls and love fashion. We also adore time with our girlfriends, pink champagne and plenty of good-looking, male attention. While I am known by family and friends as a ‘fixer’ and will not give up until a problem is solved, Vanessa is wise beyond her years and the advice she gives is sound and sensible. And she is also a great storyteller, just like our father.