Behind Closed Doors(51)
We must have been about four months into our marriage when Jack decided that we’d spent enough time wrapped up in each other and that if people weren’t to become suspicious, we would have to begin socialising as we had before. One of the first dinners we went to was at Moira and Giles’s, but as they were primarily Jack’s friends, I behaved exactly as he told me I should and played the loving wife. It made me sick to the stomach to do so, but I realised that if he didn’t start trusting me, I’d be confined to my room indefinitely, and my chances of escaping would be drastically reduced.
I knew I’d done the right thing when, not long after, he told me that we’d be dining with colleagues of his. The rush of adrenalin I felt on hearing that they were colleagues and not friends was enough to convince me that it would be the perfect opportunity to get away from him, as they were more likely to believe my story than friends who had already had the wool pulled over their eyes by Jack. And, with a bit of luck, Jack’s success in the firm might mean there was somebody just waiting for the opportunity to stab him in the back. I knew I would have to be ingenious; Jack had already drummed into me how I was to act when other people were present—no going off on my own, not even to the toilet, no following anybody into another room, even if it was only to carry plates through, no having a private conversation with anybody, no looking anything but wonderfully happy and content.
It took me a while to work out what to do. Rather than try to get help in front of Jack, who was so very good at dismissing my accusations, I decided it would be better to try to get a letter to someone, because there was less chance of me being dismissed as a hysterical madwoman if I put everything in writing. Indeed, in view of Jack’s threats, it seemed the safest way forward. But getting my hands on even a small piece of paper proved impossible. I couldn’t ask Jack outright because he would have been immediately suspicious and not only would he have refused, he would have watched me like a hawk from then on.
The idea of cutting relevant words out of the books he had thoughtfully supplied me with came to me in the middle of the night. Using a pair of small nail scissors from my toilet bag, I cut out ‘please’, ‘help’, ‘me’, ‘I’, ‘am’, ‘being’, ‘held’, ‘captive’, ‘get’, ‘police’. I looked for a way of putting them in some kind of order. In the end, I put one on top of the other, starting with ‘please’ and finishing with ‘police’. They made such a tiny pile that the possibility of them being mistaken for just a screw of paper and being thrown away made me decide to secure them with one of my hairgrips, which I had in my make-up bag. Surely, I reasoned, anyone who found a hairgrip holding a bundle of little pieces of paper together would be curious enough to look at them.
After a lot of thought, because I couldn’t afford to have it opened in Jack’s presence, I decided to leave my cry for help somewhere on the table once dinner was over so it could be found after we’d left. I had no idea where we were having dinner, but I prayed it would be in someone’s house and not in a restaurant where the danger of the clip being scooped up in the tablecloth along with other debris was higher.
In the event, my careful planning came to nothing. I had been so concerned as to where I should leave my precious bundle of words that I forgot I had to get it past Jack first. I wasn’t overly worried until he came to fetch me and, after watching me for a moment as I slipped on my shoes and picked up my bag, asked why I was so nervous. Although I pretended it was because I would be meeting his colleagues, he didn’t believe me, especially as I had already met most of them at our wedding. He searched my clothes, getting me to turn out my pockets and then demanded that I give him my bag. His anger when he found the hairclip was predictable, his punishment exactly as he had promised. He moved me into the box room, which he had stripped of every comfort and began to starve me.
PRESENT
Waking in the basement, my mind instantly craves sunlight to anchor my internal clock. Or something to make me feel I haven’t, finally, lost my mind. I can’t hear Jack, but I sense he’s near, listening. Suddenly, the door swings open.
‘You’re going to have to move quicker than that if we’re to be in time to take Millie for lunch,’ he remarks, as I get slowly to my feet.
I know I should feel pleased that we’re going but the truth is, seeing Millie gets harder with each visit we make. Ever since she told me that Jack had pushed her down the stairs, she’s been waiting for me to do something about it. I’m beginning to dread the day she’ll actually manage to persuade Jack to take us to the hotel because I don’t want to have to tell her I still haven’t found a solution. Back then, it never occurred to me that I would still be a prisoner a year on. I had known that it would be difficult to get away from him but not that it would be impossible. And now, there is so little time left. Seventy-four days. The thought of Jack counting down the days until Millie comes to live with us like a child waiting impatiently for Christmas makes me feel sick.
As usual, Millie and Janice are waiting on the bench for us. We chat for a while—Janice asks us if we enjoyed the wedding the previous weekend and our visit to friends the weekend before that and Jack leaves it to me to invent that the wedding was in Devon, and very lovely, and that we enjoyed the Peak District, where our friends live, very much. Jack, ever charming, tells Janice that she’s a treasure for allowing us to take advantage of the short time we have left together before Millie comes to live with us and Janice replies that she doesn’t mind at all, that she adores Millie and is happy to step in for us whenever we need her to. She adds that she’s going to miss her when she leaves and reiterates her promise to come and visit us often, which Jack will make sure that she never does. We talk about how Millie has been and Janice tells us that thanks to the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed, she’s getting a good night’s sleep, which means that she’s back to her normal self during the day.