Behind Closed Doors(45)
I still might have said something if it hadn’t been for Millie’s room. As my parents exclaimed over the pale-yellow walls, the beautiful furnishings and the four-poster bed piled high with cushions, I couldn’t believe that Jack would have gone to so much trouble if he really had evil intentions towards her. It gave me hope, hope that buried somewhere deep down inside him there remained a small pocket of decency. That he’d control me, but leave Millie free.
The week after my parents left, Jack finally took me to see Millie. It was a long five weeks after our return from Thailand and, by that time, Millie’s leg had mended and we were able to take her out for lunch. But the Millie I found waiting for me was vastly different from the happy girl I’d left behind.
My parents had mentioned that Millie had been difficult while we’d been away and I’d put it down to her disappointment at not being our bridesmaid. I knew she also resented that I hadn’t gone to see her as soon as we’d got back from our honeymoon, because during my phone calls to her, where Jack had stood breathing down my neck, she’d been practically monosyllabic. Although I quickly won her over with the souvenirs Jack had allowed me to buy for her at the airport, as well as a new Agatha Christie audio book, she all but ignored him and I could tell that he was furious, especially as Janice was present. I tried to pretend that Millie was upset because we hadn’t brought Molly with us, but as she hadn’t made a fuss when I’d told her we’d left her digging up bulbs in the garden it hadn’t rung true. When Jack told her, in an effort to rescue the situation, that he was taking us to a new hotel for lunch, she replied that she didn’t want to go anywhere with him and that she didn’t want him to live with us either. Janice, in an attempt to defuse the situation, diplomatically took Millie off to fetch a coat, whereupon Jack lost no time in telling me that if she didn’t change her attitude, he’d make sure I never saw Millie again.
Searching again for something else to excuse Millie’s behaviour, I told him that, in view of what she’d said about him not living with us, she obviously hadn’t realised that once we were married he would be with me all the time and resented having to share me with him. I didn’t believe for a minute what I was saying—Millie understood very well that being married meant living together—and I knew I would have to get to the bottom of Millie’s attitude towards Jack before he lost his patience and carried out his threat of the asylum. But with him always at my side, watching my every move and gesture, I couldn’t see how I was going to be able to talk to her in private.
My chance came at the hotel Jack took us to for lunch. At the end of the meal, Millie asked me to go with her to the toilet. Realising it was my chance to talk to her, I got to my feet, only for Millie to be told by Jack that she was perfectly capable of going on her own. But she insisted, her voice getting louder and louder, forcing Jack to give way. So he came with us. When he saw that the Ladies’ toilets was down a short corridor where he wouldn’t be able to accompany us without it looking suspicious, he dragged me back and reminded me, in a whisper that sent a chill down my spine, that I wasn’t to tell Millie—or anyone else for that matter—anything, adding that he would wait for us at the end of the corridor and warning that we weren’t to take long.
‘Grace, Grace,’ Millie cried, as soon as we were on our own, ‘Jack bad man, very bad man. He push me, he push me down stairs!’
I put my finger against her mouth, warning her to be quiet, looking around me fearfully. The fact that the cubicles were empty was the first piece of luck I’d had for a very long time.
‘No, Millie,’ I whispered, terrified that Jack had come down the corridor anyway and was listening from outside the door. ‘Jack wouldn’t do that.’
‘He push me, Grace! At the wedding house, Jack push me hard, like this!’ She bumped me with her shoulder. ‘Jack hurt me, broke leg.’
‘No, Millie, no!’ I hushed. ‘Jack is a good man.’
‘No, not good.’ Millie was adamant. ‘Jack bad man, very bad man.’
‘You mustn’t say that, Millie! You haven’t told anybody, have you, Millie? You haven’t told anybody what you’ve just told me?’
She shook her head vigorously. ‘You say always tell Grace things first. But now I tell Janice that Jack bad man.’
‘No, Millie you mustn’t, you mustn’t tell anyone!’
‘Why? Grace not believe me.’
My mind raced, wondering what I could tell her. By now I knew what Jack was capable of and suddenly it made sense, especially when I remembered that he had never wanted her to be our bridesmaid. ‘Look, Millie.’ I took her hands in mine, knowing that Jack would be suspicious if we were too long. ‘Shall we play a game? A secret game for just you and me? Do you remember Rosie?’ I asked, referring to the imaginary friend she invented when she was younger to take the blame for her own wrongdoings.
She nodded vigorously. ‘Rosie do bad things, not Millie.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said solemnly. ‘She was very naughty.’ Millie looked so guilty that I couldn’t help smiling.
‘I not like Rosie, Rosie bad, like Jack.’
‘But it wasn’t Jack who pushed you down the stairs.’
‘Was,’ she said stubbornly.
‘No, it wasn’t. It was somebody else.’