Our Kind of Cruelty(75)

‘Well, I met Angus around September the year before last, but we didn’t start seeing each other until about November and even then we took it very slowly because of Mike. I knew I was going to have to finish things with Mike, but I felt very confused and I also knew how badly he’d take it. My plan was to tell him face-to-face when he came home at Christmas.’

‘Would you say you had fallen in love with Mr Metcalf by then?’

‘Yes,’ V said, very simply. ‘I’ve never loved anyone like I loved Angus.’

It was possible, I thought, that I had died and gone to hell. The room had become very hot and I could feel water dripping down my back. My mind slithered, not able to keep up with what V was saying, not able to process it into the meaning I knew was there, into what I knew she would be wanting me to hear. Stop listening to the words, I kept telling myself, except they were all I could hear.

‘But you were still concerned for Mr Hayes at that point?’ Petra asked stupidly.

‘Yes, very much so,’ V answered. ‘Naturally we’d talked lots about his childhood over the years and I knew he was much more affected by it than he admitted, even to himself. I know the reason he doesn’t get close to many people is because he finds it hard to believe anyone will love him. He was always going on about how he wasn’t good enough for me. And I understand that. My God, it’s amazing he’s done as well as he has with a start like he had.’ Her voice caught and my brain stopped slithering. ‘But I couldn’t let that mean I sacrificed my life to make his happy. I knew telling him was going to be awful and I knew he was going to take it badly, but I had to do it.’

‘Of course you did,’ Petra said. ‘Your mother said it made you ill.’

‘Yes, I felt very agitated for weeks before he came home. I barely slept at all. I had to take time off work and go and stay with my parents.’

‘But it turned out Mr Hayes had been unfaithful to you in New York, which he admitted to you?’

‘Yes. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt when he told me that,’ V said. ‘Looking back now, I can see how cowardly I was to use that as an excuse and I wish I hadn’t done it, but at the time it just felt like a massive release.’

‘Perhaps you thought Mr Hayes didn’t care as much about you as you’d thought?’

‘There was that as well. I mean, I was surprised that he’d done it, but his excuses were very irritating. He tried to blame me for it, going on and on about how lonely he’d been, as if I was the one who’d made him go to New York.’

‘Which you hadn’t?’

‘No, of course not. In fact, when he applied for the job I remember being very upset. But Mike had this obsession with retiring by the time we were forty-five. I don’t know why, but I always presumed it had something to do with his upbringing and how out of control he’d always felt. I think it’s very important for him to feel in control now and I suppose money helps with that.’

I reached out and put my hand against the solid wood of the box in which I sat, contained and safe. I felt the warden look at me and I would have punched him if he’d touched me. Because at that moment I still hadn’t entirely worked out what V was doing, why she was swapping and spinning our story.

‘How did Mr Hayes take the ending of your relationship?’

‘Very badly. It was dreadful. He started screaming and crying and begging me not to end it. He grabbed me round the legs and I had to slap him to get him to let go of me because I was so scared. My parents had to ask him to leave our house the next day because he wouldn’t leave me alone and then he bombarded me with phone calls and texts and emails. He sent so many flowers my mother had to donate them to the church. Angus came and took me away in the end and I think if he hadn’t done that I might have gone mad.’

I concentrated on the feel of the wood beneath my fingers, old and ridged, and ultimately unconcerned.

‘But Mr Hayes went back to New York in the end?’

‘Eventually, yes. He’d bought me a ticket to come and spend New Year with him there even though I’d told him a hundred times I wasn’t going to, way before our conversation about splitting up. When I didn’t turn up for that flight I think he began to get the message and then I changed my phone number and told him I wasn’t going back to our flat. In the end he went back to New York, but the emails continued for about six weeks. It got to the stage where Angus would go on to my account every morning and evening and delete them so I wouldn’t even have to know how many he’d sent.’

An image of monkey man Angus reading my private words to V flashed into my brain and I almost wished he wasn’t dead so that I could feel my hand smash into his face again.

Petra walked towards the jury. ‘Item thirteen in your folders. And then they just stopped?’

‘Yes. One day they stopped and that was it. At first I didn’t believe it but as time went on I really thought things were OK. Then Angus and I got engaged and I was so happy I let the thought of Mike drift to the back of my mind. I always knew I was going to have to tell him about the wedding, but I kept putting it off and then one day, out of the blue, I got this email from him saying he was coming back to live in London and so I replied and told him about the marriage.’

‘And how did he react to that?’