I nod my head, remembering my mum’s frantic phone calls, her terrified voice telling me that Sally and Hannah had gone missing again. Then the follow-up call to let me know they’d been found and that Sally was just a bit under the weather.
‘But that was before she met me,’ says Paul. ‘And I convinced myself that I’d fixed her and she wouldn’t slip into her old ways again. But it helped with Hannah. When I found out about what she’d been through as a kid I started to cut her some slack. And I told Sally to go easy on her too. After that things were better. I got on well with Hannah, we started to do things as a family. It was wonderful.’
His voice breaks and he squeezes his hands together.
‘I moved them out of your mum’s place and we bought the house on the Willow Estate. Sally was still working at the bank so there was plenty of money coming in. But then it all went pear-shaped.’
‘What happened?’ It suddenly hits me that I’ve never actually asked Paul for his side of the story. The only version I had was Mum’s.
‘Well, Hannah started asking questions about her real dad but Sally was having none of it. I think she was worried that Hannah would get hurt. But I told her it was only natural she’d want to meet her dad. If I was her I’d want to know who my father was. I thought things had settled down then one night I came home and found Hannah in a right state. Apparently Sal had found her searching her father’s name on the internet. She’d gone mad and shouted at Hannah, said some terrible things.’
‘What things?’
‘Oh, you know Sally once she gets going,’ he says, raising his eyebrow. ‘She told Hannah that this bloke, the dad, had wanted her to have an abortion. It was probably true but she shouldn’t have said it. Hannah was devastated. I mean, no one wants to find out that their dad wanted to abort them.’
‘He was just a kid,’ I say. ‘Same age as Sal, barely in his teens when it happened. His family moved away soon after. I think it was his parents who were pressing for the abortion.’
‘Sound like a nice bunch,’ says Paul, taking a sip of beer. ‘I mean how spineless can you get?’
‘They probably thought they were doing the right thing,’ I say. ‘As I said, he was just a kid. Anyway, they left no forwarding address so Sally had no way of getting in touch when Hannah was born. I think the chances of Hannah finding him on the internet were pretty slim.’
‘Yeah, but it scared Sally,’ says Paul. ‘She got paranoid that Hannah was going to find her dad and leave her. It made Sally really jealous. She started drinking heavily again and that’s when her other side started to come out.’
‘Her other side?’
‘It was like she was two different people,’ says Paul, his voice heavy with drink. ‘One minute she’d be telling me how much she loved me, and then suddenly, whoosh, she’d just go mental.’
‘You mean violent?’
‘What? No, not really,’ he says brusquely.
‘Paul, I need you to be honest,’ I say, leaning towards him. ‘About Sally, about what’s happening to her. Look, I saw your arm. Is that something to do with her?’
He puts his head in his hands and sighs.
‘Paul, please.’
‘Okay, yes,’ he says, lifting his head. ‘Yes, she did it. Are you happy now?’
‘Of course I’m not happy. This is horrific.’
‘Well, how do you think I feel?’ he says. ‘I’m a man. I should be able to look after myself.’ He looks down at his drink, not meeting my eye.
‘What happened?’
‘It wasn’t her fault,’ he says, lowering his voice, aware of the other men in the room. ‘It was a few weeks back. She’d run out of wine and I caught her with the car keys in her hand, just back from the off-licence. I grabbed the keys and said she was crazy, that she could have killed someone driving in that state. She was so drunk she dropped the bottles, and then she went ballistic. She grabbed one of them and came at me with it, would have got my face if I hadn’t put my arms up to defend myself.’
‘My God,’ I gasp. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I thought I could deal with it, but truth be told, after that night I was scared. I still am. I just don’t know what she’s capable of when she’s drunk.’
I think about my visit to Sally earlier, the venom in her eyes when she talked about Mum. That awful grin on her face.
Paul drains his glass and I can’t help looking at his arms and wondering what else he isn’t telling me.
‘Paul, do you think she ever hurt Hannah? Physically hurt her?’
He puts his glass down and stares at me for a moment.
‘Be honest.’