Behind Closed Doors(58)

‘Not at all. It’s a very good idea. Shall we say three o’clock? That’ll allow me and Jack to have lunch with Millie and Janice first.’

‘Well, if you’re sure,’ says Esther doubtfully.

‘Yes, it will be lovely for Millie,’ I say, nodding.

‘I’ll see you on the ninth, then.’

‘I look forward to it. Goodbye, Esther, thank you for phoning.’

I put the phone down, steeling myself.

‘What the hell was all that about?’ Jack explodes. ‘Have you really just invited Esther to some sort of birthday party for Millie?’

‘No, Jack,’ I say wearily, ‘Esther decided that we should give Millie a proper party and then invited herself and the children along. You know what she’s like—she almost ordered me to invite Diane and Adam along as well.’

‘Why didn’t you refuse?’

‘Because that kind of role doesn’t come easily to me any more. I’m too used to being perfect, to saying the right thing, just as you’ve wanted me to do. But, if you want to go ahead and un-invite them, please do. Our friends may as well get used to the fact that they’re never going to meet Millie. Didn’t Moira and Giles say they couldn’t wait to see her? What excuse are you going to give them, Jack?’

‘I thought I’d tell them that your parents suddenly realised how much they missed their beautiful daughter and that she’s gone to live with them in New Zealand,’ he says.

Horrified at exactly how much he intended Millie to be out of sight and mind, I’m determined that the party for Millie will go ahead.

‘And what if my parents decide to come over for Christmas?’ I ask. ‘What will you do if they turn up here, expecting to see Millie?’

‘I doubt very much that they will and anyway, maybe she’ll have given up and died before then. Although I hope not—it would be most inconvenient if she only managed to last a few months after all the trouble I’ve gone to.’

I turn away abruptly so he can’t see the way the colour has drained from my face and the only thing that stops my legs from giving way beneath me is the murderous rage that has filled my heart. I clench my fists and noticing, he laughs. ‘You would just love to kill me, wouldn’t you?’

‘Eventually, yes. But first, I’d like you to suffer,’ I tell him, unable to help myself.

‘Not much chance of that, I’m afraid,’ he says, seeming amused by the thought.

I know I have to keep focused, that the chances of Millie being a flesh-and-blood person to our friends rather than someone they only know about second hand are slipping away fast. I also know that if Jack suspects I want the party to go ahead, he’ll phone Esther back and tell her that we prefer it to be a private gathering.

‘Just cancel the party, Jack,’ I say, sounding as if I’m close to tears. ‘There’s no way I could sit through it and pretend that everything is fine.’

‘Then it is the perfect punishment for inviting Janice in the first place.’

‘Please, Jack, no,’ I plead.

‘I do so love it when you beg,’ he sighs, ‘especially as it has the opposite effect that it’s meant to. Now, up to your room—I have a party to prepare for. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all—at least once people have actually met Millie, they’ll be even more impressed by my generosity.’

I let my shoulders slump and drag my feet as I walk up the stairs in front of him in what I hope is a perfect picture of dejection. In the dressing room, I take off my clothes slowly while my mind looks for a way to distract him so that I can take the pills from my shoe and hide them somewhere on me.

‘So, have you told the neighbours that as well as having a manic-depressive wife, you have a mentally retarded sister-in-law?’ I ask, slipping off my shoes and beginning to undress.

‘Why would I have? They’re never going to meet Millie.’

I hang my dress back up in the wardrobe and take my pyjamas from the shelf. ‘But they’ll see her in the garden, when she’s having her party,’ I say, putting them on.

‘They can’t see into our garden from their house,’ he points out.

I reach for the shoebox. ‘They can if they’re standing at the window on the first floor.’

‘Which window?’

‘The one that overlooks the garden.’ I nod towards the window. ‘That one over there.’ As he turns his head, I crouch down, place the shoebox on the floor and pick up my shoes.

He cranes his neck. ‘They wouldn’t be able to see from there,’ he says, as I prise the tissue from my shoe. ‘It’s too far away.’

Still crouching, I tuck the tissue into the waistband of my pyjamas, place the shoes in the box and stand up.

‘Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,’ I say, putting the box back in the wardrobe.

I walk towards the door, praying that the tissue won’t slip from its hiding place and spill pills all over the floor. Jack follows me out and I open my bedroom door and go in, half expecting Jack to pull me back and demand to know what I have stuffed into my waistband. As he closes the door behind me, I don’t dare believe that I’ve actually managed to pull it off, but when I hear the key turning in the lock, the relief is so great that my legs give way and I sink to the floor, my whole body trembling. But because there’s always the possibility that Jack is only letting me think I’ve got away with it, I get to my feet and slide the tissue under the mattress. Then I sit down on the bed, and try to take in the fact that I’ve achieved more in the last fifteen minutes than I have in the last fifteen months, acknowledging all the while that, if I have, it’s thanks to Millie. I’m not shocked that she expected me to kill Jack because murder is commonplace in the detective stories she listens to and she has no real idea of what it means to actually kill someone. In her mind, where the line between fact and fiction is often blurred, murder is simply a solution to a problem.