Joe Peters - Cry Silent Tears - The heartbreaking survival story of a small mute boy who overcame unbearable suffering and found his voice again

William was by all accounts a bit of a charmer who could light up a room just by walking into it. He could have had his pick of the women there that night but it was Marie he was in love with and he was beginning to harbour thoughts of trying to coax her away from his mate, Frankie. The first thing he had to do, of course, was ensure that she was as keen to be with him as he was to be with her.

Feeling left out as he watched them together at their anniversary party, and hoping to make Marie jealous on the night, William decided to seduce Lesley, who had probably had enough drinks to make her look like a promising prospect. Ultimately I guess he was hoping that when Marie experienced a rush of jealousy at seeing him paying attention to her friend, she would realize how much she loved him and would leave Frankie for him. It was the sort of game that could only end in tears, but then a lot of people fail to weigh up the consequences of their actions when they’re young and they’ve had a few drinks at a party. Perhaps the flirtation between William and Lesley started out as a relatively innocent bit of fumbling around on the dance floor but one thing soon led to another and a month or two later she found herself pregnant with me.

I don’t think Dad was ever the least bit in love with Mum because his affections were always directed towards Marie, even on the night of my conception, but he was a decent man and once he discovered she was pregnant he decided that marrying her was the honourable thing to do. He was a bit daunted to discover that she already had three kids from her first marriage, something she hadn’t mentioned when they met at the party, but Mum came from a Catholic family and he realized it would look doubly bad if he didn’t put a ring on her finger. The fact that he was willing to marry Lesley, however, did not change the way William still felt about Marie and his plan to kindle her interest by making her jealous was working. Marie had finally decided to give in to his advances, despite the fact that he was now officially engaged to be married to her friend, and was still her husband’s best friend. I wasn’t even out of the womb and already my family life was a potential war zone. Whatever was going to happen next it was unlikely that anything was going to go smoothly for any of them.

After that night my dad and Marie allowed their passion for one another to overcome all caution and before long Frankie came home unexpectedly one day and caught his wife and his best friend in bed together. Unable to think of anything to say to the treacherous couple, he turned on his heel and walked out of the bedroom without so much as a word. Dad, mortified at what he had done, hurriedly pulled on his trousers and ran after him, but it was too late to save the friendship. The two men started arguing and got into a fight in the street, and when Frankie did eventually come home he took the rest of his anger out on Marie. In that day of betrayal and violence their marriage was destroyed and Dad, furious that any man had dared to lay his fists on the woman he loved, went looking for Frankie again. Everyone now got to hear what was going on, including Lesley. There was no going back; she had a baby on the way and a husband who was having an affair with her best friend. She was publicly humiliated and very, very angry about it.

By the time I was born in 1973 Frankie had disappeared off the scene and Dad was skipping back and forth between Lesley, the mother of his adored first child, and Marie, the love of his life. It was as though I had been born into a powder keg and I was going to be the spark that would ignite the whole thing once and for all. If I had never been conceived I’m sure Dad would never have married Mum and he and Marie would have stayed together from then on and lived a very happy life together. But I was there, and that changed everything.

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