Proud: My Autobiography by Gareth Thomas

Author:Gareth Thomas [Thomas, Gareth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781473502208
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2014-09-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

TRUTH

I was between coaching sessions at one of my rugby academies in the village of Treforest, just south-east of Pontypridd. Such days are usually a joy, because I feed off the kids’ enthusiasm for the game I love, but this was so, so different. I was in turmoil, and determined to push myself beyond the point of no return. I called my wife from the car, just before she left for work. ‘Look,’ I said, praying my voice wouldn’t break because of a mixture of dread and panic. ‘I need to tell you something tonight.’

Jemma asked, ‘What is it?’ immediately, inevitably and understandably. In my befuddled state, I didn’t have a convincing response, other than to say it was something we needed to discuss, face to face. ‘Why?’ she demanded.

Since I was evasive and feeble, she knew something was up. Her alarm was building into anger when I cut the conversation short with an unconvincing excuse that I needed to be out on the training field.

I sat there, closed my eyes, and cursed my lack of courage and common decency. I felt constricted and was suddenly aware of the speed and shallowness of my breathing. I had to open the door, to let in the fresh air and stem a mounting tide of anxiety and remorse. I looked out at the kids, messing around, and envied their innocence. What a mess.

If I didn’t care about myself, the least I could do was care about those who cared for me. The weaker I was, the more pain I inflicted on them; the deeper my deception, the shallower my motives became; the more intimate the secret, the more remote were the chances of their love being repaid. It was my responsibility to change, to be big enough to stop belittling those around me with a cancerous lie.

The truth didn’t come easily. It arrived in instalments. The priority was to use it to free Jemma. That morning, going through the motions of coaching the kids, I renewed my private promise to release her from fear, confusion and uncertainty. It would be distressing, but she would never again have to wonder who that hastily deleted text was from, or where I really was during those increasingly regular absences. It was time to live up to that oft-overlooked marriage vow to honour her.

After my wife, I would give my parents their rightful peace of mind. I’d give them no more reason to worry, in those endless, wakeful hours before dawn, about what sort of trouble I was getting myself into.

My teammates couldn’t be denied their due, either. They needed to know everything about the guy who expected everything of them. It wasn’t going to be easy, and it wouldn’t provide instant salvation, but I had run out of options.

The third miscarriage and the realisation, on that cliff top, that things were destined to become irredeemably worse, had penetrated the nuclear bunker in which I had hidden from myself. It took me a month from

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