Behind Closed Doors(44)

Until that point, I had never doubted that I would be able to escape from him, or at least tell someone that I was being held prisoner, but there was something about the matter-of-fact way he spoke that was chilling. His absolute certainty that everything would pan out exactly as he had planned made me, for the first time, doubt my ability to outwit him. As he escorted me back to my bedroom, telling me that I would get no food until the following day, all I could think about was what he had done to Molly and what he would do to me if I tried to get away from him again. I couldn’t afford to risk not seeing Millie for yet another week and the thought of her disappointment when I didn’t turn up for the next few Sundays made me feel even more wretched than I already felt.

It was the hunger pains I was experiencing that gave me the idea of pretending I had appendicitis so that Jack would have no choice but to take me to hospital, where I felt I’d be able to get someone to listen to me. When he eventually brought me food the next day, as he had promised he would, it was already late evening, so I hadn’t had anything to eat for over forty-eight hours. It was hard not to eat much of what he’d brought me and, as I clutched my stomach and moaned that it hurt, I was grateful for the cramps that made my pain more genuine.

Unfortunately, Jack remained unmoved, but when he found me doubled up the next morning, he agreed to bring me the aspirin that I asked for, although he made me swallow it in front of him. By the evening, I’d progressed to writhing around on the bed, and during the night, I hammered on the door until he came to see what all the noise was about. Telling him that I was in agony, I asked him to call an ambulance. He refused, saying that if I was still in pain the next day he would call a doctor. It wasn’t the result I had wanted but it was better than nothing and I planned carefully what I would say to the doctor when he came, knowing—after my experience in Thailand—that I couldn’t afford to sound hysterical.

I hadn’t foreseen that Jack would stay with me while the doctor examined me and, as I acted out being in pain every time he probed my stomach, my mind raced frantically ahead, aware that if I didn’t seize the moment, all my play-acting and depriving myself of food would have been for nothing. When I asked the doctor if I could speak to him alone, insinuating that the pain I was experiencing might be due to a gynaecological problem, I felt victorious when he asked Jack if he would mind stepping out of the room.

After, I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me that Jack’s willingness to leave the room meant that he wasn’t worried about the outcome of my tête-à-tête with the doctor. Neither did the doctor’s sympathetic smile, as I told him urgently that I was being held prisoner, make me suspicious. It was only when he began questioning me about what he called my suicide attempt and a supposed history of depression that I understood Jack had covered all angles before the doctor had even set foot in my bedroom. Appalled, I begged him to believe that Jack wasn’t who he said he was and repeated what he had told me, that he had beaten his mother to death when he was little more than a child and had let his father take the blame. But, even while I was speaking, I could hear how unbelievable it sounded and, as he wrote out a prescription for Prozac, I became so hysterical that it gave weight to what Jack had told him, that I was an attention-seeking manic-depressive. He even had the paperwork to prove it—a copy of my medical reports from the time of my overdose and a letter from the manager of the hotel in Thailand detailing my behaviour the night we arrived.

Devastated by my failure to convince the doctor that I was speaking the truth, the enormity of the task before me seemed once again insurmountable. If I couldn’t persuade a professional to consider what I had told him, how was I going to be able to get anyone else to understand what was going on? Even more pertinent, how was I ever going to be able to talk to anyone freely when Jack wouldn’t allow me any communication with the outside world unless it was controlled by him?

He began to monitor the emails I received and, if he didn’t dictate my reply word for word, he stood over me and read every word I wrote. As I was locked in my room day and night, people were forced to leave a message on the answerphone, unless Jack was around to take their calls. If they asked to speak to me personally, he would tell them that I was in the shower or out shopping and would call them back. And, if he did allow me to call them back, he would listen to what I said. But I didn’t dare object as my conversation with the doctor had cost me another week’s visit to Millie, as well as the right to have tea and coffee in my room. I knew that if I wanted to see her again in the near future I’d have to behave exactly as Jack wanted, at least for a while. So I submitted, without complaint, to the restraints he placed on me. When he came to bring me food—he brought it morning and evening back then—I made sure he found me sitting impassively on my bed, subservient, docile.

My parents, with their move to New Zealand imminent, were suspicious of the mysterious bug I had apparently picked up in Thailand and which prevented me from visiting Millie. To discourage them from visiting, Jack had told them it was potentially contagious, but I could tell from their anxious phone calls that they were worried my interest in Millie had waned now that I was married.

I only saw them once before they left, when they came to say a hurried goodbye, and it was then, during a quick tour of the house, that I finally saw the rest of the rooms on the first floor. I had to hand it to Jack; not only had he made me tidy away all my belongings so that he could pass my bedroom off as one of the guest rooms, he had strewn my clothes around his bedroom to make it look as if I slept there too. I longed to tell my parents the truth, to beg them to help me, but with Jack’s arm heavy on my shoulder, the courage to say anything at all never came.