Josephine didn’t like her husband’s attitude but she didn’t comment. ‘I wish she’d call me though, Michael. We talk regularly, you know that.’
He grabbed his wife’s hand, and squeezed it tightly. She had such small hands and feet, she was so fragile.
‘Don’t worry, Josephine. Knowing our Jessie, she’s probably shacked up with some lowlife she met last night. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’
Josephine didn’t reply; this was upsetting her now. She didn’t need her husband to remind her of her daughter’s failings. She pulled her hand roughly away from Michael’s, and he knew he had hurt her feelings. But he couldn’t tell her the truth, that Jessie had dropped off the radar and no one seemed to know where she was.
‘I better get myself back, Michael, I have a few things I need to sort out today.’
Michael felt his anger rising at Josephine’s words, but he swallowed it down as always. All his wife actually did, day in and day out, was repair her make-up, paint her nails and rearrange her boxes of crap. For the first time in years, he felt he needed her, wanted her to be like she was in the old days, when he could tell her anything, and she would advise him, listen to him. He didn’t like having to admit to himself that his lovely wife Josephine was like a stranger to him these days. She would choose her old crap over him, over Jake, over Jessie, if she had to. He had done his best to see his wife happy; now he wasn’t so sure he had done the right thing by her. All he had accomplished was to allow Josephine to live a life without any meaning. He had stood back and let it happen. The doctors had given her pills, but no one challenged her or told her that her life was odd, that she was odd. The psychiatrist talked to her for hours in her rooms; he paid the fucker a small fortune, but Josephine just got worse. Looking at her now, he wondered how he could have let it happen. When she had first started bulk-buying food, he should have put his foot down then. They rarely made love any more, and they talked only in generalities of things that were of no real importance. All they had in common was Jake.
He could see Josephine watching him warily, and he wanted to grab hold of her, drag her into bed with him, and give her a serious seeing to, like in the old days. But he didn’t feel he could do that to her any more. She wasn’t the old Josephine, the woman he had married – this was a woman who lived inside herself, whose every waking moment was lived in a vacuum.
‘Are you happy, Josephine? I mean really happy?’
He could see the confusion on her face at his question, and he wanted to slap her, wanted to make her react to him without thinking it through first. ‘Answer me! It’s not a hard question, is it? It’s a simple yes or no.’
Josephine looked down at her hands, unable to look her husband in the face. ‘Of course I’m happy, Michael. What a thing to ask.’
Michael put his finger under her chin, and he made her look him in the eyes, before he said seriously, ‘I don’t think you are, Josephine. I don’t think you have been happy for a long time. Not really.’
Josephine looked at her husband, saw the sadness in his expression, and the way he was waiting expectantly for her answer. ‘I am happy, Michael.’
She meant it. He smiled because he knew she was telling him the truth – as she saw it. ‘Good. That’s all I wanted to know.’
Chapter Ninety-Nine
Jessie was frightened and cold. She was also starving, which amazed her because she didn’t think food would be high up on her priority list. But it was. She didn’t eat that regularly anyway but, for the first time in years, her stomach felt empty; the hunger like a gnawing pain inside her. Her arms and legs were tied, and it was so painful; every time she tried to move her body, a burning pain shot through her limbs.
She was terrified. It was so very dark. She felt tears running down her face, and she forced herself to stop them. She wasn’t going to cry, that wasn’t sensible; she couldn’t afford to let her emotions get the better of her. She was going to keep her wits about her, and try and work out what the situation actually was. If this was a kidnapping, which she doubted, whoever had organised it had better take the money and run as fast as possible. Her dad wouldn’t let something like this go unpunished – he would take it very personally, see it as an act of treason against him, and all he stood for.
The pain was shooting through her skull again, and it was so acute she closed her eyes and bit down on her bottom lip, trying to ride it out. It was a losing battle – the pain was too intense. She felt herself losing consciousness again, and she didn’t try to fight it this time. Her head was aching so badly, but at least it had stopped bleeding.
She embraced the sleep that washed over her; she was glad of it, even though she knew it wasn’t natural.
Chapter One Hundred