The Wife Before Me(62)
Maurice is patient but determined that Elena must listen to him. ‘The alternative is a prison cell. I’m not suggesting you’ll be committed to an asylum, anyway. You’re in Rosemary’s care and you’ll receive outpatient treatment. Nicholas’s legal team will strongly oppose this measure, so the slightest infringement of your bail conditions will be disastrous for you.’
A current of air passes through the small office and plays over Elena’s face. She is convinced there are cold fingers pressing on the back of her neck. Amelia. This tingling awareness gives her the strength to listen carefully to Maurice. She thinks about the fatal decision Amelia made to escape the misery of her marriage. So many parallels. Elena could be her pale reflection. But there is one difference. Amelia chose death. Elena is determined to choose life. She is alert now, listening to Maurice as he elaborates.
Post-partum depression is the only explanation that makes sense. It’s understandable, fixable, unlike the unseen fist and boot. Maurice will enter a plea of guilty by reason of insanity and a judge will sentence her to a rock or to a hard place.
Which will be more endurable?
Thirty-Four
The word Kingsdale has been carved into a granite rock that stands at the entrance to the housing development where Yvonne and Henry live. The houses are detached and spread out around a large communal green space. Elena doesn’t stop as she walks past their house, but nor does she quicken her pace. A slow saunter and a sideways glance over the gate. Only one car in the driveway. Henry must be at work. The house is screened by a high privet hedge and the gate has been tied with rope to prevent small children escaping.
She once lived in a similar development called Leeway Valley, where children played on the green and the residents organised annual sports days. In her teens, she would congregate there with her friends, drinking cans and smoking, until the council, tired of complaints from neighbours about noise at night, cut down the shrubbery and deprived them of their shelter. ‘The graveyard’, that’s what they used to call Leeway Valley. Elena had despised its suburban symmetry and unchanging routine. Now, she longs to wrap those safe structures around her once again. Instead, she must deal with a new normality. But this – this deliberate taking of her children – what is normal about that?
Yvonne and Henry’s hatred towards her remains implacable. She almost killed their son and they are not prepared to listen to excuses about self-defence. They believe her unhinged from her inability to manage two babies and they have taken them into their care. Elena’s court hearing to grant her visiting right to Grace and Joel has been postponed three times. Rosemary warned her that Nicholas’s barrister would find every available legal loophole to delay the case. No matter how anguished the wait becomes, Elena must not do anything reckless or foolhardy to jeopardise her chance of a fair hearing. She has tried to be patient. All she wants is a glimpse of Grace and Joel. That will be enough – just a glimpse – and she is prepared to wait all day, if necessary. Her face is shaded by a hood and her zip-up hoodie and jogging pants are a nondescript grey.
Four days a week, she works at Rosemary’s law firm. Business is beginning to pick up and being busy keeps Elena sane. Since that terrible morning Rosemary has been like a surrogate mother to her, a kind friend and a wise advisor. She is an early morning jogger who encourages Elena to rise early too and pull on a tracksuit. Elena hated it in the beginning, her body protesting as the road rose and fell under her. But only her body cried. She had no energy left for tears. She is swimming again, old rhythms returning. Sometimes, as she battles with the waves and the cold rush of the Irish Sea, she feels the return of that familiar exhilaration and welcomes it, despite its briefness. To forget everything except the buoyant waves and sting of salt is amnesia at its most powerful. But as she drags herself from the water, it is no longer possible to pretend that her life – and her children are her life – has not been taken from her.
A man emerges from a neighbouring house and jogs past her. Further up the road, a silver-haired woman is walking two dogs on leads. Elena crosses the road to the green, where a horse chestnut tree has shed its leaves. The tree and a semicircle of dense foliage form a natural boundary to the road. It will shelter her from the houses on the opposite side but she will be visible if anyone walks across the green. A stranger in a hoodie will be enough to alert suspicions in this quiet development.
Children have forged paths between the shrubbery’s burgeoning roots. So, too, have teenagers, if the empty beer bottles and cans are any indication. Some things never change. She moves into this leafy space and crouches down. Drivers leave for work and children amble towards the nearby school. This spurt of activity is soon over and Kingsdale settles back into a mid-morning quietness.
Her patience is rewarded when a car draws up outside Stonyedge. Nicholas has changed his Porsche for an ice-blue BMW. Adrenalin pumps through Elena as she watches him untie the rope from the gate. His jeans and bomber jacket suggest he has taken a day off work. She searches for signs that her attack on him has had an impact but he appears to have fully recovered, if his brisk walk is any indication. Yvonne opens the door before he reaches it. Unlike her son, she is dressed formally, in a red, pencil-slim skirt and matching jacket, a scarf draped over her shoulders. Nicholas hunkers down and holds out his arms to the children. Grace… How fast she runs, fleet on her feet, while Joel clings to Yvonne’s neck. Their shrieks reach Elena, as does Nicholas’s laughter. Once so familiar and dear to her, now it grates against her ears. She longs to drown it out and listen only to her children. She parts the branches for a better view. Nicholas takes Joel under his arm and holds Grace’s hand. Her daughter’s excited voice reaches Elena, who strains forward in an effort to hear what she is saying. Yvonne accompanies them to the car, nodding, talking, making hand gestures, as Nicholas straps them into the back seat.