Page 151 of Don't Tell Teacher

‘Thanks, Dad. I love it.’

It’s a Marvel Action Heroes rucksack – I bought it for his first day back at school after the holidays. Apparently, Transformers is ‘for babies’ now.

I’m in danger of spoiling him, but that’s okay. And I don’t hear Tom complaining.

Tom hasshotup over Christmas. Like the tomato plants on our windowsill. Just growing and growing. He’s a completely different boy, tall and strong. Good food, exercise and no medication, that’s all it took.

‘Come on then.’ I take Tom’s hand – he still lets me do that. ‘Let’s go. We don’t want to be late.’

There was a time when I couldn’t hold Tom’s hand. Couldn’t see him, talk to him, tuck him in at night. You can’t imagine how it felt. I was in hell. Now, every day is like my birthday.

‘Are we walking?’ Tom asks. ‘Or going in the camper van?’ He loves the camper van.

‘The camper will be a bit hard to park today, Tommo. They’re still doing those roadworks.’

‘Please.’

I glance at his little face. ‘Oh, all right then. First day back. What do you think your new teacher will be like?’

‘Hopefully nicer than Mrs Dudley.’ Tom gives me a mischievous grin.

I met Mrs Dudley at the court hearing. She’d left Steelfield School by then. Voluntarily, according to her. But we all know she was pushed.

The headmaster was sacked and may face a prison sentence.

In court, Mrs Dudley was asked to give evidence about Tom’s erratic school attendance, lateness and the fact he was often tired, pale and hungry.

I remember Lizzie was always a nightmare with time, either ridiculously early or hours late. So it was no surprise to hear she repeated this pattern with Tom at school. Early some days, very late on others.

When I think what could have happened to Tom … But that’s a dark road, and I try not to go down it.

During the hearing, I was obsessed with justice. Justice against social services who lost records and mixed up reports, and the doctors who misdiagnosed and ignored. Justice against the police, who gave me a restraining order based only on Lizzie’s testimony and self-inflicted wounds. Justice against the family-court judge who let Lizzie walk away with my son.

Justice against Lizzie herself.

Lizzie Nightingale, a wolf in nurse’s clothing.

Of course, I’m not absolved from blame. I was so caught up with the romance I didn’t see what was right under my nose. Lizzie over-medicated me, drugged me up, made me see things, hear things. I became so aggressive, angry and depressed, I hardly knew myself. But even in my darkest moments, I never hurt my wife or child. It was all a figment of Lizzie’s imagination.

In my clearer moments, I suspected something was wrong. But mostly, I had no clue. Not until it was too late.

Tom and I still see a counsellor together to help us make sense of things. We go every Friday, then head to McDonald’s (Tom’s choice) for a Happy Meal with chocolate milkshake.

It’s tough, the counselling. Emotional. Very tiring.

A lot happened that Tom needs to talk about.

During the last session, Tom said Lizzie put menstrual blood on his dressing gown to make it look like he’d had a nosebleed. He saw her doing it in the toilet, but she convinced him he was seeing things. And she gave him three different tablets one morning – the morning he attacked the little girl in the playground.

Tom knew the tablets made him feel bad. He tried to get rid of them, bringing medicine bottles into school, giving the tablets to Lloyd and throwing the empties away at the back of the school field.

My medicine bottles, as it turns out. Painkillers I’d been prescribed.

Things like that are very, very tough for me to hear.

We talk about me as well and how angry I am with Lizzie. Years of mood swings and paranoia – all at her hands.

But I don’t only blame the meds. Seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes is a real wake-up call. The illusion of Lizzie I created … no one else did that. I’m a hopeless romantic, all my friends say so. When I meet a woman, I think she’s perfect.

---