The intruder gave her a shove. “Liar!” He continued to ignore the rest of us, including the crying babies.
Standing straighter, she stared into his angry face and confessed. She’d been having an affair since the baby was born. The pair of them began a character assignation to apportion blame. In the heat of their unpleasantness, he hit her. A slap across the face. I jumped at the sound of it, and she stepped backwards, rubbing her cheek. He called her names, those names men use to denigrate a woman to her basest level.
A couple of braver women tried to placate him, telling him to go, he was scaring the kids. We’d collected them up in our arms and stood around, helpless. I wondered how to stop the couple and their vicious slanging match. He hit her again, this time harder, snapping her head back. Too hard. Her lip swelled in an instant. Things had gone too far.
I slipped out my mobile phone and speed dialled Gibson, telling her to shift herself quickly.
Gibson didn’t wait to reply but dashed into the room in a matter of seconds. Before anyone reacted to the presence of another stranger or the irate man could land his fist again, my bodyguard flung him to the floor and sat on his back. She twisted his arms behind, and he cried out, trying to wriggle out from under her. A futile gesture against a formidable opponent. From her back pocket appeared handcuffs, and she slapped them on with speed that reminded me she was well trained in the martial arts.
“Calm down!” Gibson snarled.
“Get the fuck off me!”
He struggled, and she tightened her grip on his contorted arms. He ranted, and Gibson remained sat on him, unmoved.
The solitary child sitting on the floor ceased his repugnant tirade. With her big brown eyes, she gazed in a state of shock as her parents shouted abuse at each other. Her mum went suddenly quiet, as if to remember why she was there. Picking up the child, she rocked the baby in her arms and cooed words of comfort. The man’s mouth shut, and he lay still. The room fell silent.
“Do you want me to call the police?” Gibson asked.
“You’re not one of them?” said the woman.
Gibson shook her head but offered no explanation where she had come from or why she had handcuffs.
“No police. They’ll ring social services. I don’t want them involved.” She rocked her child again.
“Come on,” said another, stepping forward. “He thumped you one. We’re all witnesses.”
“Perhaps I deserve it.” She shrugged then kissed her child’s head. “How did you find out?”
The man lifted his head off the floor. “I came home early. He was in our fucking bed, Mel. Our bed, naked. You’d left him in our bed.” His cheeks remained flushed red, and sweat dripped down his forehead. It wasn’t hot in the hall.
Her forehead furrowed into deep trenches, and for several seconds, she stood stock still.
“But, Baz, I haven’t seen him for over a week,” she said.
Around the couple the other mums waited with open mouths to see how the little drama played out. A bizarre real-life soap opera enacted before a willing audience. The children squawked, but everyone’s eyes fixed on the couple. Gibson let him up into a kneeling position but kept a grip on his cuffs.
“He was in our bed. Terry. My so-called mate, Terry!” Baz growled. “Did you give him a key or something?”
“No! I never. I let him in...while you were at work. But I didn’t let him in today,” she insisted.
“Then who did?” he snapped.
The pair changed in their demeanour, as if someone had flicked a mental switch. Mel’s hand covered her mouth to smother a cry of alarm. The colour drained out of his face.
“Laetitia,” he whispered.
“Who is Laetitia?” asked Gibson.
“My daughter from my first marriage,” answered Mel. “She’s only sixteen. She’s been bunking off school a lot recently. The bastard! He used me, he fucking used me to get at her.”
“Oh God, oh God.” The man rocked on his knees. Sixteen years old wasn’t illegal, but age became irrelevant under the circumstances.
“Don’t go and do anything stupid,” warned Gibson. “If you end up in prison on assault charges, you won’t be there for your daughter, will you.”
“Too late, too fucking late.” His pallor managed to turn paler, and he rocked as if in physical pain. He shook his head. “Too late.”
“What have you done, Baz?” Mel moved, shifting around the kneeling man. “Baz, there’s blood on your shirt.”